NBC Sports - Promotional Rebrand
In 2014 NBC Sports sought to shift their visual identity to differentiate NBCSN and NBC Sports from the competing Sports Network offerings. I was asked to seek top design studios to pursue trend setting branding and direct the transition from our previous aesthetic to the promotional design of our future.
With bold simplified visuals and hierarchical, sequential messaging we sought to eliminate clutter from promotional tune-in frames. We identified the color yellow as the most dominant and eye catching representation of our brand and sought to find ways to combine this with black and darker imagery in order to have the highest level of contrast and legibility. Associating NBC Sports with the ‘S’ from it’s logo has been a goal since our 2012 rebrand. This was an opportunity to implement this design within the promotional identity.
We took advantage of the marketable strengths of NBC Sports, namely the purity of the broadcast getting you closer to the Sports you love. We also focused on how NBC Sports takes themselves out of the way rather than forcing themselves unnaturally into a broadcast. With Imaginary Forces as the design team we focused on beautiful often macro imagery as a backdrop with simple yet bold yellow graphics to deliver the message.
Property logos included with tune-in lead to cluttered and confusing messaging, so we eliminated them from tune-in pages. What remained is the bare minimum allowing the clearest message to come through. All properties followed this logic allowing NBC Sports endpages, production animations, and snipes to represent the branding of NBC Sports based on the design alone.
The NBCSports promotional graphics packing spread through all aspects of NBC Sports design including the on-air packaging, production promotions, website design, and print materials. Sports fans who have been exposed to our messaging can clearly identify NBC Sports branding and differentiate it from any other sports media.
NBC Sports
John Miller – CMO NBC Sports Group
Bill Bergofin – Executive Producer
Lorin Finkelstein – VP, Creative Director
Brian Matthews – VP, On-Air Promotions
Don Simon – Creative Director
Eric Woods – Director, Design
Will Lee – Director, On-Air Promotions
Ray Worsdale – Director, On-Air Promotions
Tom Schiro – Senior Designer
Kevin Shinkle – Art Director
Zachary Van Benthem – Art Director, Interactive
Imaginary Forces
Director: Ronnie Koff
Senior Producer: Aleen Kim