by Jason Snell
Fox redesigns its NFL graphics
John Teti of The AV Club reviews Fox’s new NFL graphics, which debuted on the Super Bowl broadcast last Sunday:
As Kansas City Chiefs kick returner (and buffet line troublemaker) Mecole Hardman carried the opening kickoff out of the end zone, Fox unveiled its new look. It happened without an excess of ceremony, unlike everything else that day. A tight formation of parallelograms unfurled at the bottom of the screen. The words “49ERS” and “CHIEFS” glided into view and faded away, replaced by logos of the respective teams—logos so large that no parallelogram can contain them, but these parallelograms try their best nevertheless.
It’s a good overview and, overall, a good package. Though I’m not entirely convinced that using gold as the fill color in the 49ers score box is the right idea, since they were wearing white shirts. One of the pieces of information that broadcast graphics can convey quickly is which team is wearing which color. That’s less important in a high-profile game like the Super Bowl, but more important if you’re broadcasting the XFL or college football. By using white numbers in the score box, it seems that Fox is unable to display a white background for a team wearing white.
[via Todd Vaziri]