Sunday, October 2, 2011

In-Game Entertainment


To commemorate the last weeks of baseball season, here's a bit of what I enjoyed during last week in the Pittsburgh Pirates' PNC Park. The Pirates aren't at the top of their league. But PNC is a lovely park, my favorite Pittsburgh fan is a lovely man, and the Bucs won 2 out of 3 games. The big surprises to me were the short videos played prior to each Pirate's at-bat. The videos were sophisticated, witty, and showcased the home team's town. There were even a few different visual styles in the rotation. From my brief exchange with someone at the Pirates.com site, I learned that the videos were created by the In-Game Entertainment department; unfortunately, I don't have specific credits.









Although the trick of aged paper or graphics to make new books "look" old is itself old, the screen for the Pirates player stats were amusing. )Maybe it was the atmosphere.) They must have a custom font, too, for the swash initials.

The most memorable part of the days out at the ballgame was the sports propaganda. At a crucial point in the 9th inning in the best of the three games, a clip from the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean," featuring the battle cry "Hoist the Colors!" whipped every Pirates fan into a frenzy. Hoisting the colors/waving those symbols (not to mention the night's free tee shirts) did the trick. The Pirates won.

Every Spring's a new season. Let's go Bucs (and for this season, Good Luck, Yankees (big payroll and what we've learned from "Moneyball" aside).





Sorry about all that extra, uncropped, possibly redundant branding for PNC and PNC Park!

1 comment:

Suzanne Dell'Orto said...

You know you're a designer when....
Love these shots; I know game board design (or whatever it's called) has gotten quite sophisticated.