In Florida, “heat” means two things: the temperature and the police. For A&E's Florida Heat, from Live PD producers Big Fish Entertainment, Pixeldust designed a graphics package that turns up both.
Florida Heat is a law-enforcement series on A&E that explores the connection between crime and the scorching Florida heat. Big Fish Entertainment, the producers of the hugely popular Live PD, came to Pixeldust for the show’s full graphics package.
The brief called for bold colors, heat maps and police imagery that captured both Florida’s diverse regions and summers that can feel like more than 100 degrees. Pixeldust delivered an open sequence styled like a pop-up book, heat index overlays, lower thirds and bumpers that give the whole series one sizzling look.
Designing a TV graphics package for A&E
Big Fish wanted the graphics to represent both the diverse regions of Florida and its extreme heat, with bold colors, heat maps and police imagery. The show’s title has a double meaning, “heat” as temperature and as slang for the police, so the graphics had to strike a balance between the two themes.
Pixeldust explored a number of concepts for the pitch, each balancing heat and police in its own way. The full package would include an open sequence, heat index overlays, lower thirds and bumpers.
The open is the cornerstone for the style of all the in-show graphics. Bright, boldly colored backgrounds highlight the lively parts of Floridian culture, from gator country to swamps and suburbs. Those simple, complementary colors are punctuated by heavier imagery of police apprehending suspects, inspired by real encounters on the show.
Everything comes together in a 2.5D parallax look that flips each scene into the next like a pop-up book, ending with a sizzling hot title revealed over a picturesque Florida beach.
Beyond standard in-show graphics like lower thirds that introduce key individuals and bumpers into commercial breaks, Pixeldust created more graphics for the editors to lay into the show. Overlays reinforce the theme of extreme heat during police encounters. Because many encounters happen at night, these adjustable overlays keep the theme present and the style consistent across the series.
