Purple Show Franchise

Skills: Graphic Design, Styleframing, After Effects Animation, Templating

Hosted by sports anchor Mark Viviano, WJZ’s Purple Show franchise is a mix of linear and streaming shows that cover the local Baltimore Ravens football team.

The launch of a unifying news package by the CBS News and Television Stations Group prompted a need to also update the look of WJZ’s Purple Shows and bring them more in line with the new brand guidelines.

While the Group Creative team collaborated directly with CBS Sports on a long-term solution for a flexible sports package, I developed a transitional package that could be quickly implemented for WJZ’s coverage beginning in the summer.

My solution also borrowed from the CBS Sports package, but with a mind towards building a modular system of elements that was friendly to the editors in WJZ’s creative services department, who would be producing the final deliverables.

Purple Show Before and After Opens and Features

Comparison of the Opens and Features before the 2023 update and after. The Opens were fairly consistent but still needed to be updated to more closely align with brand guidelines. The features were all over the place.

Pre-Update Purple Show Features

More examples of the bespoke Feature animations muddied the identity of the shows and created more work for the editors.

The Package update

After analyzing CBS Sports’ animations to identify repeatable characteristics that I could apply to WJZ’s transitional package, I began styleframing and developing building blocks for the opens and features.

Sketch 1: Open Inspo

My “Sketchbook” identifying characteristics in the CBS Sports Package

Sketch 2: Features Inspo

The final features really didn’t look anything like what was considered here, but these were the notes I had to meet the technical requirements for WJZ’s graphics systems.

Styleframes: Purple Show Opens

The first pass was nearly there—some minor changes in the final were made for clarity.

Styleframes: Purple Show Features

Initially I wanted to provide an opportunity to open to a plate with a purple-tinted footage background to retain some topical reference that the pre-update Feature animations had. However, that led to some of the same issues as before—a lack of unity. The plain off-white background simply had a cleaner look and was more turnkey for the editor as well.

Building Block: Purple Eyeblast

A local “eyeblast” animation modeled after those in CBS’s network promotions. I anticipated it could be used to tie together the Purple Shows in general promotions.

Building Block: Purple "Wayfinder" Library

Like the normal news package, the CBS Sports package had a library of sports-related accents. I recreated some of the ones I saw in their samples and designed my own as well. This was an important block to have because WJZ wasn’t legally able to use any real Ravens logos or imagery.

Building Block: Text Treatment

This text treatment was built with text animators in After Effects, so it was simple enough for an editor to adjust the text values.

SAMPLE Open

A final sample I delivered. Once approved an editor could take the After Effects file and swap out the different footage modules that gave each Purple Show its topical distinction.

SAMPLE Feature

Instead of ending on the footage background, we decided to end on the gradient white background. It provided more clean, uniform look to the features. Asking for all-white client logos also helped maintain the packege color dominance. One change I would make is locking down the title type to just one size so that the editor wouldn’t need to worry about the typography.

Since the audio read for these sponsored features could vary in length, they were constructed without alpha channels and with 30 seconds of pad so that they could be played out like an editor package without being bound to the set timings necessitated by Ross Overdrive codes.

Promotions

Of course, in addition to the main package, there needed to be a unified approach to the promotions too. I used some of the same visual language as in the Open and Franchise templates to be sure viewers could connect the promotions for the shows to the actual shows.

WJZ x Jimmys Collaboration :05 ID

WJZ and Jimmy’s Famous Seafood collaborated on many events and shows together. This was for hype!

Purple Connection Streaming Promo :15

A promo endplate that could feature imagery/talent was requested to show off WJZ’s partnership with Ray Rice as a host.

Countdown to the Purple Pregame Super Show

Factoid bumps were made to count down to the final Purple Pregame show before Super Bowl LVIII. Baltimore was quite optimistic about going all the way!

FRANCHISE Purple Takeover

When the Baltimore Ravens made it as far as the AFC North Game, WJZ went ALL-PURPLE! This one-time animation heralded the takeover of the Friday news to build the hype for the game!