Arenamation: LED Fascia or Ribbon Board

            This week I thought I'd switch it up a bit and focus on a production company called Arenamation that is out of the New York area. Arenamation is a design firm that specializes in creation of sports motion graphics. Additonally the firm prides itself in its LED Fascia/ Ribbon Board animations that  have been seen throughout sport venues in the U.S. including the NBA, MLB, NHL and the NFL. For any of you that aren't familiar with LED Fascia animations which are often referred to as ribbon board, this is the LED technology found in sport venues and on outdoor billboards. Here is an example of a ribbon board inside a Major League Baseball venue...

           A typical ribbon board has one blue, one red and one green LED (Light Emitting Diode) to form only one pixel. Although the ribbon board is capable of playing animations and live video similar to a television what sets it apart is the aspect ratio. With most ribbon boards having a height of only 48 pixels and a width of over 10,00 pixels this creates a considerable challenge when creating the content, something that Arenamation has many years of experience doing. Here is another example of ribbon board...

Here is some of Arenamation's other works...

       

        

        

This was created by Arenamation for the New Orleans Saints 2012 introduction video and is displayed right before the players take the field.

                      

Lastly another example of their work with the Pittsburgh Penguins 3D Logo...

                      

Fox Sports Graphics

I spend a lot of time on my weekends watching football games, and I began to think about the motion graphics used week in and week out by the major sports networks, in particular, Fox Sports. I discovered that Fox Sports has both a graphics and a design team, and that the graphics team was the one responsible for a majority of the graphics we have become accustomed to on Sundays, such as the basic wipes on the screen, as well as the jumping robot that shows up on the side of the screen quite often.

I was interested to find that the Fox Sports Graphics website actually had a link to the FOX NFL graphics used, and it showed the various wipes and interstitials and other graphics used. The website with all of this information can be found here.

I wasn't able to find substantial information on the Fox Sports Graphics team's software used, but the Fox Sports Design team's webpage states that it employs a number of designers, mostly those who specialize in Flame. Sports in particular have put a strong emphasis in their broadcasts on the use of motion graphics, and it can be seen more and more each year.