In the Emmy-nominated comedy “Girls5Eva,” the girl group of the title reunites 20 years after its turn-of-the-millennium glory days to try for a comeback. Now well into their 40s, the band members played by Sara Bareilles, Busy Philipps, Paula Pell and Renee Elise Goldsberry navigate strained friendships, skeptical spouses and the perils of social media to reclaim their girl power, with flashbacks that also feature Ashley Park (as the dearly departed fifth member) and Erika Henningsen (as the younger version of Pell’s character). Pentagram designed the high-energy opening titles and logo for the comedy, which was created (or “cre8ted”) by Meredith Scardino and debuted on Peacock before moving to Netflix.
“Girls5Eva’s” graphics are inspired by the late 90s-early 2000’s Y2K pop era—the heyday of girl groups, boy bands and MTV’s “TRL,” and a period the designers knew all too well. The Pentagram team had a blast doing research, looking at vintage Spice Girls, TLC and Destiny’s Child videos and “Now That’s What I Call Music!” CD covers, and of course listening to tons of fantastic pop music.
The “Girls5Eva” titles fit right in with bright candy colors, numbers visualized in names and titles, extruded 3D type, sparkly bling, color blocking, transitions in dot patterns, and an impossibly catchy and hilarious theme song by Richmond. The designers helped edit the footage to match the high-powered typography. Co-directed by Richmond and Kat Coiro, the sequence is bold and strong, just like the women in the group.
Pentagram first met the series’ co-executive producers Robert Carlock, Tina Fey, Jeff Richmond, David Miner and Eric Gurian when working on the logo for “30 Rock.” Pentagram also created the identity and titles for “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” the Netflix series produced by Carlock and Fey, where Scardino was a writer, and “Great News,” the NBC comedy co-executive produced by Carlock, Fey and Richmond.
