At this year’s Station Summit, PromaxBDA welcomes two Tribune representatives to Thursday’s PromaxBDALocal, a day of sessions, speakers and presentations: Jason Jedlinski, VP of digital operations at Tribune Broadcasting and Larry Wert, president of broadcast media at Tribune, to, respectively, the sessions “The Emerging Media Reality Check” and “Welcome to Now: The Innovators, Leaders and Architects of the New Broadcast Paradigm.”

In light of Tribune’s involvement, we present a special installment of Brand/Rebrand: An account of the company’s recent overhaul of the news graphics for its seven Fox-affiliated TV stations, from the perspective of one of its own: Nelly Sarkissian, lead designer at Tribune West Creative…

Creative: Tribune West Creative

Campaign Led By: Marshall Hites, VP, Marketing and Creative Services, Tribune Broadcasting

Objective: Over the last year, Tribune Creative Group West has become a major supplier of motion and functional graphics for the 23-station Tribune Broadcast Group. Previously an area serviced by outside vendors at significant cost, Tribune made a conscious decision two years ago to invest in facilities and expertise to answer this need internally. As a first effort, the company made its seven Fox-affiliated television stations (Fox17 West Michigan, Fox 59 Indianapolis, Fox 5 San Diego, Fox CT Hartford, Fox 43 Harrisburg, Fox 40 Sacramento, Q13 Fox Seattle) a priority for upgraded news graphic design. The Tribune West Creative team was charged with developing an entirely original and shared news graphics package for these stations. In addition to original design, the LA-based team provided all back-end functionality utilizing the VizRT platform, onsite implementation and staff training. The resulting work has been rolled out in two of the seven stations, Grand Rapids and Indianapolis. The five other Tribune markets will be launched before the end of 2013.

Steps Taken: In approaching the design work, the recurring theme of the Fox brand involved a consistent use of cylindrical motion to draw focus to the identity. To appreciate the Fox brand, we needed to familiarize ourselves with the on-air visuals and how the message was transmitted: the inevitable bold interface, font size, etc. The challenge was creating a new design and staying loyal to the brand.

During the design phase, the most FREQUENT comment was, “It isn’t looking Fox enough!” With use of effective typographic and motion elements, we created an ever-changing, dynamic logo that retained the traditional look of the Fox brand.

The design anchors taken into consideration were the original Fox Box design, the position locked in the bottom left, the searchlights, and most importantly, the blue and red colors that articulate the legacy look. With new technology and design capabilities, each of those elements was given contemporary face lifts, thereby infusing the brand with an up-to-date visual realization.

During the launch process, each station had its own challenges, including technically updating VizRT versions of templates and training the staff. Most notably with Fox 59 Indianapolis, the weather components were a considerable hurdle. Known for severe weather, Indianapolis is heavily reliant on breaking weather coverage and frequent updates. “The Weather Authority,” a 30-minute segment that is longer than a typical weather forecast, was our main focus. The initial rebrand package contained only the minimum templates that were part of our deliverables. However, with the cooperation of F ox 59’s creative department, the number of templates in their weather graphics multiplied to 40, with custom elements that included weather alert tickers, icons and radar maps.

Lessons Learned: Moving forward, Tribune West Creative will be launching more stations, including San Diego, and with the understanding we’ve gained in the launch process, we are able to apply more prepared responses to most commonly seen issues. Overall, this has been an invaluable experience for Tribune West Creative, and has proved us capable of undertaking and effectively delivering network-level rebranding packages.

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