One Six Eight designs IDs for National Geographic - Post News

Post, Sept, 2002 by Matthew Armstrong

SAN FRANCISCO -- Continuing its long history of working with the National Geographic Channel, One Six Eight Design Group created the on-air identity package and graphics for two of the network's upcoming fall shows: Phobia, a 13-part series, and Surviving West Point, a weekly show.

"The fun part of working with National Geographic," notes executive producer Jan Phillips, "is that every show is very different and each special has its own set of demands. One thing we focus on for these show packages is investigating each subject thoroughly before we start to even think about the design. You have to find the right theme for each subject."

Each episode of Phobia covers a different fear, so "the challenge was to visually represent fear itself instead of trying to portray every phobia into the show's ID package.

Working closely with National Geographic's creative team, One Six Eight devised a graphic illustration of debilitating anxiety using a color palette of muted green, yellow and blue to convey the sense of discomfort. DP Mush Emmons shot a variety of representational images -- wringing of hands, dilated eyes -- as well as phobic triggers like syringes and a snake. The studio also culled images from National Geographic's stock footage library. All of these images were then color corrected, at Varitel by colorist Chris Martin, to achieve the desired color tones. Editor Blake Facente then made a rough cut in Avid. One Six Eight animator Jeff Jankens used Adobe's After Effects to manipulate the images. The graphics were tweaked further with Quantel's Henry.