After having worked on several campaigns for the BBC, I was asked to take on the design duties for their Partner Marketing team. Partner Marketing is where a campaign image from a show or podcast is supplied to a selection of Multichannel Video Programming Distributors (like Sky or Amazon) for them to use as backgrounds, banners and carousel tiles on their user interfaces.
There are about 15 different third party interfaces that we supply designs for, each with several different formats that slot into various locations. The sizes and shapes are incredibly varied, going from long, thin, landscape formats to portrait or square images that have to work in a variety of crops. Each format has its own safe areas to allow for interface elements that will be automatically superimposed. In total there are probably about 40 different specs, with their own, often quite different, rules.
The job itself starts with a detailed look at what has been supplied. If there are layered versions of the key art, these are taken apart to see how far the backgrounds can be extended. The backgrounds usually need to be about three times the size of the focal part of the image, so extending them is crucial. There are a handful of ways to achieve this, so ascertaining what will work and what will be most effective is the initial starting point. Once the extension is complete, there are a variety of templates and guidelines to consult for each location. Then, when all the actual work is complete, a PowerPoint deck needs to be created containing all the different adapts for easy review.
Below are the pages from the deck for Amandaland Season 2.
