Shadow Kingdom

Stock Images from Unsplash and the United Mine Workers.

In 2025, I had the honor of working with Crooked Media and Campside Media to develop the key art and branding for their new series “Shadow Kingdom.” Each season, journalist Nicolo Majnoni deep dives into a political true crime story to reveal the larger systems at play. In season one, “God’s Banker,” Majnoni investigates a tip he received regarding the mysterious 1982 death of Roberto Calvi, the chairman of Italy’s Banco Ambrosiano who guarded a dangerous secret about the Vatican Bank’s criminal activities. Season two, “Coal Survivor” examines the brutal murder of United Mine Workers hero Jock Yablonski and his family in 1969, uncovering the union politics and conspiracies that lead to the tragedy.

The team needed a key art concept and branding that could be expanded and customized for each season of the show. Rather than using a templatized layout or image treatment, we decided to find a universal-yet-customizable symbol that could serve as the central figure in the key art each season. We tested several concepts, including still-lifes of Nicolo’s desk during each investigation and close-ups of the uniforms of the organizations featured in each season. We landed on a concept called “Caught Red-Handed,” in which each season would feature a close-up photograph of a man’s hands caught-in-the-act.

For “God’s Banker,” I composed a scene of a man with the papal ring hiding Banco Ambrosiano documents in his Bible. For “Coal Survivor,” I manipulated an archival photo of a mine worker smoking on the job (image courtesy of United Mine Workers).