In August of 2017, I had the privilege of helping the CMT On-Air Design team with their annual Artists of the Year event. I was invited to pitch my treatment for the entire show. The logo, promo elements, and venue stage all had to be designed into a unified look. Below are the frames and supplemental pitch assets from my presentation.
ARRIVAL
CMT hosts two fantastic awards shows each year: Music Awards, and Artists of the Year. The latter tends to be more formal and refined. With this in mind, I wanted to approach the project in an understated, yet interesting look. Since ancient times, the palm branch has been used as a symbol of victory. It has won battles, worshiped kings, and honored heroes. My pitch, entitled VICTORY, pulls from timeless design cues and modern aesthetics to pay tribute to the top artists in country music. Its vibrant colors excite the senses, while the calming grey tones provide stability and contrast.
ARTIST IDENTIFICATION FRAMES
Moving against tradition, artists are acknowledged by their last names to elevate the formality of the event. VICTORY uses simple surfaces and dimensional forms to enhance the depth of each frame. The gallery atmosphere is meant to be both a reverent space as well as a stark canvas that can emphasize the artists and invite the audience to focus on them. Lighting is simple, and there are no depth-of-field blurs in order to keep everything sharp and honest.
BACKGROUNDS
Throughout the development of VICTORY, I wanted to keep color special. This required me to create empty spaces with interesting content. While this presented a challenge when making promo backgrounds, I embraced the opportunity to extend the look into an organic space.
SHOW OPEN FRAME
During the opening of the show, we take the opportunity to highlight the numerous achievements of our winners in the given year. This requires us to show an artist with supporting type. Once again, I kept the layout simple, but used the opportunity to highlight our victor by having them violate the upper part of the frame. This is also a good opportunity to see our hero and support font in use.
PRESENCE
While keeping the same physical stage from the previous year, we are able to adapt it to VICTORY with bright color washes in the blades and a textured surface on the stage doors.
LOOK & FEEL
Choosing a serif font was important to me. I wanted something that would elevate the event, but also provide good utility. It needed to provide good mass without calling too much attention to itself. Elaris checked all those boxes.
Throughout the development of VICTORY, several colors, layouts, and treatments were explored. A curated selection of different tests can be seen above.
I wanted to consider a fresh look for the logo as well. I needed to stay true to the original spirit of the logo, but wanted to balance that with the look that I assembled.
THANK YOU
Thank you for joining me on this journey as I explored my approach to this project. About two weeks were invested into developing this look, and I would have loved to develop it further. Ultimately, a different direction was chosen for the show, but I was privileged to offer my pitch.
VICTORY is understated, yet rich; unassuming, but provocative.
