Watch as the Emmy-nominated docuseries returns for new season sporting new promo look, adorned with the team’s colors and fiery dragon, debuting across print, digital, and TV… and a new trailer.
Six-time Emmy nominated Welcome to Wrexham launched its second season on FX last month, with the series sporting new key art and some animation created by State that made its debut across print, digital and television including bicoastal OOH billboards and the much-anticipated Season 2 trailer, which you can watch below.
The docuseries chronicles the purchase and stewardship of Wrexham AFC, the third oldest professional football club, by Hollywood actors, Ryan Reynolds (Free Guy, Deadpool) and Rob McElhenney (Mythic Quest, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia). Season 2 spotlights the Red Dragons’ promotion from the fifth tier of U.K. football and Reynold’s and McElhenney’s relentless bid to bring some serious hope and change to this Wales community.
The key art is adorned with the team’s iconic colors, highlighting the football club’s fiery dragon and impassioned owners. Marking the rich history of the Welsh agricultural economy and idyllic rural countryside, State integrated a pair of voracious sheep to join the triumphant charge to victory. Creative Director Lucho Suarez, who’s still savoring his home team’s World Cup win (Argentina), worked closely with illustrators Helton Mattei and Jamie Givens to ensure the dragon embodied the mechanics and spirit of professional soccer players.
“We wanted to bring dimensions to the red dragon to convey the evolution of Wrexham AFC – the determination, the character, and the struggle the team, the ownerships, and the community have gone through to create this powerful sports saga,” comments Suarez.
Describing the creative process and production, which took a team of 14 roughly 6 weeks to finish, Suarez shares, “The creative brief asked us to elevate and mature the package from the previous season to reflect the progression of the Wrexham team. Knowing this, we decided from the outset to use cel animation for the project. Character animation and organic elements like fire and smoke were developed frame by frame in Animate, while camera movements, composition, color correction, and toolkit creation were done in After Effects.”
“For design, from the beginning, we knew that we wanted to incorporate tritones, high contrast, clean lines, and a high level of detail in the characters. The graphic novel universe served as our initial inspiration for the illustration style during the first phase of design exploration,” he continues.
The team sketched a multitude of ideas, incorporating elements such as dragons, soccer, and various aspects of Wrexham City and its culture—all infused with a touch of humor. They collaborated closely with FX, selecting the strongest concepts to then render and move into the animation phase. The main tools used for design were Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.
According to Suarez, one of the biggest challenges was ensuring that the animation didn’t compete for attention with the “beautifully edited footage of Wrexham.” “Since our animations were designed to support text information, finding the right balance in the level of animation was something we adjusted until the very last day to hit the perfect spot,” he explains.
On the technical side, the project needed to be delivered as a toolkit. This meant that aspects like color, text, and social media crops had to be easily and quickly editable for different platforms.
Another challenge, the Creative Director notes, was giving just the right amount of personality to the animated characters. “It was important to make it clear that this is not an animated show, so we had to strike a balance in how the characters were portrayed.”
He concludes, “Finally, since this was a 360-degree campaign that included TV, streaming platforms, social media, and print - from buses to billboards - we had to create an extensive variety of assets. While it was amazing to work on such a massive campaign, organizing and coordinating this type of multi-platform production presented its own set of challenges.”
Enjoy State’s Welcome to Wrexham Season 2 work:
CREDITS
Design: FX
- Creative Director/President Strategy, Creative, and Digital Multiplatform Marketing: Stephanie Gibbons
- SVP, Design & VFX: Steve Viola
- VP, Design & VFX: Dara Barton
- VP, Motion Design: Synderela Peng
- Producer, Motion Design: Michael Perez
- Designer, Motion Design: Pia Alvendia
Print: FX
- Creative Director/President Strategy, Creative, and Digital Multiplatform Marketing: Stephanie Gibbons
- SVP, Print Design: Michael Brittain
- VP, Print Design: Todd Russell
- Project Manager, Print Design: Julia Panchenko
- Production Director, Print Design: Lisa Lejeune
GFX & Animation: State
- Executive Creative Director: Marcel Ziul
- Executive Producer: Alex Gorodetzki
- Creative Directors: Lucho Suarez
- Head of Production: Jennifer Chavarria
- Producers: Jennifer Chavarria & Addie Stevenson
- Design: Jamie Givens, Helton Mattei & Ian Jepson
- Illustration: Jamie Givens, Helton Mattei & Ian Jepson
- Cel Animation: Andre Diaz, Leo Guimaraes, Giulherme Gurian, Deco Daviola, Julia Simas
- 2D Animation: Fernando Jurado, Ricardo Perosa, Daniel Azevedo, Lucas Mariano, Anderson Alves
- Compositing: Fernando Jurado, Ricardo Perosa, Daniel Azevedo, Lucas Mariano, Anderson Alves
Print & Key Art: State
- Executive Creative Director: Marcel Ziul
- Creative Directors: Lucho Suarez
- Design: Jamie Givens, Helton Mattei & Siwan Seok
- Illustration: Jamie Givens, Helton Mattei & Siwan Seok
Source: State
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
