So when LA-based boutique design studio Laundry was commissioned by FX Networks to design the ‘indents’ – new introduction segments – for the show, they knew there was a lot on the line.

In keeping with the tagline for the launch – “EVERY SIMPSONS EVER – the design group was tasked with making something over the top but minimal, adhering to the familiar Simpsons aesthetic, but a “complete bombardment” of the senses.

Most importantly, key visual elements – such as colour – had to be matched exactly:

“If a shade of blue was even 5% different—the team at FX is so on it,” Laundry creative director, Anthony Liu, tells Fastcodedesign.

“They could just tell by looking at a JPEG—‘that blue’s not quite right.’” (Incidentally, here is the Pantone key for the ‘big’ Simpsons colours.)

But there’s more to it than getting the right shade of yellow. The physics of the Simpsons universe – from the movements of the characters to the way gravity affects objects – had to be taken into account.

“If Homer opens his mouth in one way in one of our designs, if it looks a little bit off from anything you could find in The Simpsons archive, then we would dial it back and tweak it,” says Dan Masciarelli, who heads up the studio’s broadcast wing.

And the result? Something utterly strange yet strangely familiar, and something undeniably ‘Simpsons’.