Agent State Farm
When High Dive decided to make a sixty second movie, that’s definitely not a commercial, for State Farm’s Superbowl ad they treated it like a full on Hollywood production. Naturally they turned to a team with vast experience in title design for entertainment.
Using my experience on many film and show main title design projects I led the design and production team at Sarofsky in the creation of the Agent State Farm logo/title and the CG teaser trailer for the Agent State Farm
Main Title
The project began with a deep exploration into what typographic structure would capture the tone and impact that High Dive was looking for in a show title. This included investigating several fairly distinct tonal buckets: Action Blockbuster, Secret Agent, Modern Hollywood Franchise. Ultimately landing squarely in Action Blockbuster. I mean, it is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s grand return to the genre after all.
Teaser Trailer
Next we explored the materiality of the title and began storyboarding the all CG teaser trailer. The idea was to strike a balance between something that felt recognizably State Farm while simultaneously feeling genre appropriate. Inspired by semi-distressed metals and kevlar-weave that subtly evokes the texture of the distinct State Farm red t-shirt we found a way to create something both new and ownable for the brand. Meanwhile the idea for the teaser trailer focused on seemingly abstract investigations of the three-circle logo form in an intentional misdirect. Could we create something that might just be a logo reveal for a new superhero movie? Is this Superman?
Finally, we designed a complementary type system to introduce Arnold and , of course, let viewers know when to expect the film. This type design centered around a condensed typeface in order to fit SCHWARZENEGGER on the screen with maximum impact and a metallic treatment that maximized legibility while also feeling related to the materials in the main Agent State Farm title.
Finishing Touch
We capped the authentic feel of the film off by helping High Dive bring to life a fake production studio logo for Red Oval Films—a sly reference to the State Farm logo.
Credits
Studio Sarofsky
Executive Creative Director Erin Sarofsky
Executive Producer Steven Anderson
Creative Director Stefan Draht
Producer Kelsey Hynes
Finishing and VFX Supervisor Cory Davis
Editor Tom Pastorelle
Assistant Editor Henry Smalstig
Title Design Travis Hawhtorne
Design & Animation
Travis Hawthorne
Luca Ionescu
Dean Ripper
Tyler Scheitlin
Alances Vargas
Storyboard Artist Brian Vincent Rhodes