Creative Brief

Mother Undercover is a true-crime docuseries produced for Hulu and Disney+, exploring real-life stories of women who took extraordinary steps to protect their children. Pioneer Productions brought Little Shadow on board from the outset to design a suite of graphics that would enhance narrative clarity while immersing viewers in the evolving digital and social environments that span multiple decades. 

The challenge was to create accurate, era-specific visual assets that felt authentic, restrained, and emotionally attuned to the subject matter. 

Our Approach

We developed a comprehensive graphics package that touched nearly every on-screen information moment, designed to both support storytelling and maintain immersion. Assets included:

• Social media and phone screen recreations: Accurately styled UIs reflecting platform design from various periods, integrated into handheld footage and overlays. 
• Map sequences: Multiple styles developed to show movements, location tracking, and police investigations. 
• Timelines and hierarchy charts: Clean infographics used to track unfolding investigations and character connections. 
• Website and transcript designs: Faux news pages and forensic transcripts that grounded the narrative in a documentary framework. 
• Time and date stamps: Consistently styled overlays for clarity across shifting timelines. 

Each element was researched and matched to the visual language of the relevant decade, from early 2000s web layouts to modern mobile screens. All assets were delivered with editorial flexibility in mind, modular, editable, and versioned for multiple episodes.

The Results

Premiering on Disney+ in February 2024, Mother Undercover drew strong viewership and praise for its storytelling craft. Little Shadow’s visual work supported the drama and investigative arc of each episode, helping anchor the emotional weight of these stories with clarity and contextual realism.