Overtime (Local 12-WKRC)

Client
WKRC Local 12, SBG

Year
2018

WKRC’s Overtime was a conceptual, weekly late-night sports show covering news, highlights and interviews in the southwest Ohio region and tri-state (OH-KY-IN). High-School, college and professional sports would each be analyzed by experts in the field, every Sunday evening after late local news.

While the concept excited choice members in WKRC creative services at the time, the whole idea ended up being scrapped due to budgeting issues at the television station. Nonetheless, I appreciated the opportunity to Art Direct the concept [if only for a month or so]. With much of WKRC’s preexisting brand identity somewhat dated, I enjoyed the challenge of bringing in a fresh, new trademark/title to add to their program-list.

Producers
Kevin Barnett, Jed DeMusey

Art Direction
Hi-Tone Images

On tap to host the show was an assortment of WKRC sports reporters, most notably former ESPN reporter Gary Miller.

Overtime graphics package

Producer, Editor
Hi-Tone Images

Trademark/Title + Identity Brief

Origin sketches

Per usual with ‘presentative’ brands or companies, I began the creation process by first analyzing their typography. Most of WKRC’s preexisting branding had called for use of everyone’s favorite—Helvetica. With that in mind, I figured the trademark/title would need to be stable and easy to read.

After a few bad sketches on paper, I got straight to the computer and began working toward what we see below.

Typography

While both typefaces are somewhat similar in structure, I was able to convince WKRC to pivot from Helvetica to Arial. While Helvetica Heavy’s corners and stems are more curved, the Arial Black font’s are ‘blocky,’ and I’d thought that would fit better for a sports-themed trademark.

Primary

Color Palette

As I crafted the sketches above, I tried a couple of color schemes and landed on red & black. In choosing red, I thought of the red numbers we see on clocks or scoreboards in sporting events. Meanwhile, I considered the color black to be an organic compliment, allowing us to stretch out the possibilities of different assets to be added in later.

Trademark Explorations

As I refined the sketches above, I felt the trademark/title was still very flat. Enter the idea to italicize the ‘O.T.‘ Once I did that, it gave the shape some movement and energy. I then tried turning the flat letters into ‘3-D blocks’ to give the look more depth, and voilà, the trademark/title was created.

Primary 1

Primary 2

Identity Exploration

Alternate 1

Alternate 2

Once the Overtime trademark/title was designed, I began considering the rest of the identity. Since the show was going to cover a number of different sports, I thought it best to generate a system of exclusive icons that could be used in conjunction with the typography and color palette.

With this in mind, I illustrated a system of icons that could be used in different ways, across different assets and graphic applications.

Style Explorations

Once Overtime’s trademark and icon system was complete, I could then pivot to building an identity system that would include a number of TV-monitor graphics, in-show transitions, full screens, supers and more. I began exploring the new look in creating the style frames below.

Overtime Main title/ Ident

Overtime Lower-third super (soccer-theme)

Overtime Show open

Overtime Player stats full-screen

Static Modules

After considering the previous style frames, it made generating the remaining assets and modules pretty easy. WKRC was even open to making certain full-screens and monitor graphics more ‘custom-themed‘ (See ‘Team-branded schedule‘ below) according to the team, event or story being covered.

Scoreboard (Temple Vs. UC)

Quick-hit Schedule (FCC)

Weekly Fan Poll

Athlete Interview Preview (Frankie Amaya, FCC)

Team-branded Schedule (FCC)

Game Match-up Set (Mich. Vs. OSU)

Animated Modules

Everything would come together in the animation phase. Utilizing all I’d created above, I put together the below animated assets to round out the video production side of the project.