press release
ESPN 'The Bracket Beyond The Bracket'
ESPN College Hoops
Eyeball Works out the Math Behind the College Basketball Bracket.
NEW YORK January, 2008 - Eyeball designers and animators brushed up on their math skills recently while working on the branding for ESPN College Basketball '07-'08 promos. Working closely with Art Director Kevin Ragland from the Martin Agency, Eyeball developed a new way to view the complex connections between teams and conferences that create the College Basketball season.
"We were tasked with visualizing a sort of 'behind the scenes' for the bracket graphic that is associated with the field of 64 teams." comments Creative Director Limore Shur. "We set about developing a visual language to represent all of the smaller connections between the 327 teams prior to reaching the final bracket in March."
The team of designers and animators delved into the numerous ways that connections can be made using simple circles, squares, dots, and lines. Designer/Animator Mia Tetzlaff focused on using code to generate animations while others worked on detailed frame-by-frame animation.
"We built a library of assets, all based on data visualization." says Art Director Neil Stuber. "Due to the numerous conference-specific spots we needed to have graphics that we could move from place to place and mortises that could hold game footage." The team at eyeball designed and animated with a template system in mind, making sure that everything they worked on could be repurposed, reused, and delivered to the in-house design team at ESPN.
"Working with the Martin Agency was a blast. They had a solid grasp of what makes traditional sports graphics strong, yet were excited to help us push the bar a tad." comments Neil. "I was surprised to find such hoops enthusiasm around the office. Rock Chalk Jayhawks!"
