Station’s mission of keeping an eye on the horizon inspires new graphics

The horizon has long been a symbol of forward thinking and a way to gauge what’s coming — and it’s that spirit that drove Vivid Zero to propose it as the central concept for the new graphics package for Griffin Media’s KWTV and KOTV in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, respectively. 

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When Vivid Zero’s Michael Vamosy visited KWTV’s downtown Oklahoma City broadcast facility, something on the wall caught his eye — a picture of a serene field of the colloquial amber waves of grain and a “vast” sky and big horizon.

That made him home in on the horizon concept — an idea that’s even more relevant in the state thanks to its volatile weather patterns known for spawning tornadoes that sweep across the local landscapes.

“As we open up this horizon and another horizon and another horizon and we’re seeing what the next hour, what the next day, what the next seven days look like,” said Vamosy, who is co-founder and chief creative officer of Vivid Zero.

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“It really got us from a conceptual standpoint to lean into that and to embrace it and really have that become the motivating factor of the navigation and how we deliver the stories,” he added.

When the news of the day isn’t about storms, the horizon still serves as a metaphor for being “at peace and you can relax and take in the serenity.”

For Houston Hunt, vice president of marketing, creating the new look also made the locally-owned station group — a rarity these days — consider its mission to its viewers.

“We’re looking at those things that our teams do every single day to keep Oklahomans safe, informed and entertained, and we wanted to reinforce that this was our community as part of that openness,” Hunt explained.

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Hunt knew the station wanted the graphics to head in a more clean, crisp direction without becoming overly cold. He also knew it was important to make the information accessible.

“I think that a lot of time we get in our own way with our storytelling because we feel that we should have a graphic for every single element on the screen,” said Hunt, noting that the graphics play a key role in supporting the visual storytelling from the news team every day. “It’s not distracting from what’s on the screen. It’s supporting it.”

As a supporting visual for the horizontal horizons, the package also leverages an arrow element in multiple ways, often serving a in transitional pieces while also acting as a motif for other elements ranging from lower thirds, on-set monitor graphics and station promos.

The station’s ultra-clean lower thirds, which use the sans serif Typold, could, in theory, allow for fairly high character count, but Hunt has been careful to communicate that less is more when coming up with headline banners.

Another key focus during the creative process was how the station would handle breaking news graphics. Here arrow animations, combined with the color red, were selected to really drive home the point that viewers should take notice.

This is reinforced with color-changing lighting on the station’s new set from Devlin Design Group, which was designed parallel to the graphics project.

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“We wanted to be very intentional about using red. This means we’re not turning everything into breaking news, so that when a viewer tunes in and they see red lighting on our set or that amazing lower third — they know that it’s important,” said Hunt, who has worked closely with the stations’ editorial teams to be judicious when opting for breaking news labels.

Designing the new set while the graphics package was being created was also a key in making the entire on-air update really blend well.

“We were able to cross-pollinate and make sure there was a way to incorporate these really important elements that VividZero created into the set,” said Hunt, who praised the synergy between the multiple creatives who contributed to this project as key to making sure that both insert and on-set graphics not only coordinated with each other but gave the graphics and editorial teams practical solutions for everyday news production.

In addition to topical graphics created based on news cycles, hundreds of Viz templates had to be created to achieve the new look. The project also required building out several hundred mini-opens and around 50 distinct newscast opens, plus over 30 storm tracker bugs, weather opens for all types of conditions and severities, all of which had to fit within the same set of design parameters.

Because of the massive amount of resources needed, it was vital for Vivid Zero to leverage its extensive knowledge of Vizrt and other systems so that their creations not only looked great but could survive any technical hurdles at the stations.

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“There’s nothing more challenging than having a package that looks amazing but is very complicated and difficult to deploy,” said Diana Horowitz, a senior producer for Vivid Zero who worked closely on many aspects of the project and was responsible for managing Griffin’s timeline for deliverables and launch.

Horowitz, Vamosy, and Hunt also stressed the strength of Vivid Zero’s collaboration with Griffin and Devlin, which they say is partly responsible for the project’s success.

“This was the most positive and exciting experience doing a large form package that I’ve had just based on the collaboration and really being able to have open conversations about the ‘why’ as we as we dug into the package,” said Horowitz, which elicited vigorous nods of agreement from both Hunt and Vamosy.

Vamosy noted that the fact is that a lot of times when you bring creatives from two different organizations together, there can be strong defensiveness of “well my idea’s better than your idea.”

“There was none of that” with this project, he said. “I really appreciated the fact that they created an environment where we can have their lead designer on the calls for brainstorming and review with our lead designer and our production folks,” Vamosy said, adding that this level of collaboration truly allowed everyone to understand where the project was heading and kept everyone focused on the same direction.

On Vivid Zero’s side, creative director Alex Ishida was instrumental in driving those conversations forward while also adding small details and refinements that made the package even more special.

“His attention to detail and organization really kind of helps bring quick visualization to how the whole thing will start to lay out, but it really kind of works those small minor details that become collectively very innovative when they all work together,” said Vamosy, adding that each idea was then run through Hunt’s team to make sure it would play out well for the stations’ practical needs.

Ishida brought some clever details to the project, including adding a diagonal arrow to the qualifier box that can be added just above the main lower third container. It’s not only a subtle nod to the arrow motif, but also gives viewers a literal indication of where to look.

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He also created a unique OTS template that uses a thin outline that mimics the dialogue box of an operating system. This look stood out to the team because it helps emphasize Griffin Media’s operations across so many platforms, including linear TV, numerous digital and mobile applications and even radio (though obviously graphics don’t appear there).

Vamosy was also quick to note that even this element, which is more of a vertical rectangle, still animates in using the “horizon” approach, a nod back to the overall design language.

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Another big change that Hunt noted is flipping the bug to the lower left of the screen. It had lived in the lower right, like on many stations and networks, but he pointed out that English is read left to right.

Putting the bug in the left gave it prime real estate to really reinforce KWTV’s “News 9” branding and KOTV’s “News on 6” banner.

“We also wanted everything to build off of and be subsequent to our bug. Our lower third builds off of the bug. The ticker builds off of the bug. Everything else radiates out of it,” said Hunt, noting that the bug has also been animated to allow the “Oklahoma’s Own” tagline to alternate with the station logo.

Now that the project has been launched, the stations are making some minor tweaks but have been hearing lots of positive feedback about how much easier the new look is to read. All three of the team members interviewed were enthusiastic about how it came out.

“I found it creatively invigorating,” said Hunt. “I’ve been with intense creative directors before, who have very strong opinions. I found that while Vivid Zero had opinions, they were also very great at listening and understanding what we were trying to accomplish.”

“What did you say?” interjected Vamosy at this point of the interview, triggering laughs on the call. “I’m just kidding. I was listening,” he quickly clarified.

“This was genuinely just one of the best processes, one of the best projects I’ve had in more than recent memory,” Vamosy added.

The new graphics are being used for both KWTV and KOTV, which have historically largely shared similar on-air looks, though KOTV is still using a distinctly different set.

Conveniently, KWTV’s “9” icon can essentially just be flipped upside down to become the KOTV logo, and the rest of the look is largely the same on both stations.

Project credits

For Griffin Media

• Houston Hunt, Vice President of Marketing
• John Quesnel, Statewide Director of Broadcast Automation
• Greg Richardson, Design Manager
• David Strozier, Graphic Designer
• Daniel Santoy, Broadcast Automation Director
• Christian Tackett, Broadcast Automation Director
• Fred Martin, Digital Manager
• Charles Lingerfelt, Graphic Designer
• Brooke Braswell, Graphic Designer
• Alex Leeper, Graphic Designer

For Vivid Zero

• Michael Vamosy, Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer
• Gilbert Avila, Executive Creative Director
• Alex Ishida, Creative Director
• Diana Horowitz, Sr. Producer
• Adam Greene, Art Direction and Animation