Batman: Caped Crusader | PITCH Creative
art direction, CREATIVE STRATEGY, graphic design, illustration
april 2024
After the success of our work with Amazon Studios on Merry Little Batman, we were approached to pitch for the new Batman animated series, Batman: Caped Crusader. While not a sequel or reboot of the classic Batman: The Animated Series, the show shares a lot of DNA with the 90’s series, notably the involvement of Bruce Timm as Executive Producer.
I’m going to start with a disclaimer: I only worked on the pitch for this campaign. Shortly after DMM won the pitch for this project I left to join the team at We Are Social, and the final creative execution for the campaign was overseen by the immensely talented Sierra Sandler. I’m including this project here because I worked closely with Sr. Creative Director Paul Thiel throughout the pitch process to develop a creative strategy for the campaign and provided art direction as well as hands-on executional design for the pitch, which helped lay the groundwork for the finished creative. I’m also including it because it’s Batman! The original animated series was monumental for me as a kid, so the chance to even pitch for the marketing of its spiritual successor was a chance of a lifetime and a career highlight. I was very sad to miss out on the full campaign, but I’m proud of the work I did on the pitch and also for how the team at DMM did such an amazing job carrying this project over the finish line.
Below I’ve included finished creative from the campaign (completed after my departure from DMM) with additional context as to my involvement from the pitch process. Some of the pitch creative I designed actually made it to the final campaign, which was very exciting to see.
Created at Digital Media Management for Amazon Prime Video.
Episode Title Cards
A hallmark of the original Batman: The Animated Series was the use of title cards at the beginning of each episode. Batman: Caped Crusader didn’t use these title card designs, so we pitched Amazon Studios on a series of bespoke Caped Crusader title cards for social, to tease the episodes and also serve as a way to show that the new series shares the DNA with its predecessor.
To the left is a title card I designed and art directed for the pitch (with motion design by Amber Robledo), which ended up being used as a finished asset for the campaign with very minimal updates to the font used.
See the rest of the title cards (masterfully executed by the DMM creative team) here.
Trailer Tease Asset
One of my favorite scenes in any Batman story is when Batman literally “drops in” on some bad guys (a skylight is often involved). To build excitement ahead of the full trailer launch, I pitched an idea for a teaser that opens a short clip of some up-to-no-good henchmen, involved in some sort of illegal activity, before The Bat crashes through the fans, giving fans a quick glimpse at the Caped Crusader title treatment and teasing the trailer launch the next day.
Batman: Caped Crusader Review Asset
During the pitch process, I created several silhouette illustrations using reference images provided by the client. These were originally intended to be used to spice up the deck with some fun illustrations, but–with the recommendation by Group Creative Director Paul Thiel–we used these illustrations to create a review graphic inspired by the noir aesthetic of Batman: Caped Crusader. I’m proud to say that this mockup made its way to a finished asset with minimal font changes, but is otherwise unchanged from what we originally pitched.