There are 6 main reasons as to what the purpose of television idents are; identity, branding, marketing, packaging and re-packaging, scheduling and segmentation within scheduling. These are extremely important to think about when thinking of the purpose of the ident, as they will ultimately give the audience a cemented idea as to what the television channel is like.
Firstly, television idents are created to make the channel identifiable to the audience watching on the television. They're made to stand out from other channels and to give themselves that staple image. Idents are mostly seen on the television, but it's important for other points of media such as posters, flyers and websites.
As above, idents often have their own color scheme either matching the channel as a whole, or in some cases, specific shows. E4 have the traditional deep purple colours, whereas BBC One has the red ring outline with the blue capturing the main feature, in this case, the surfer wave.
This BBC One ident is one that I don't think anybody could ever get bored of. That opening music chime that comes just before the main feature of the person in the red cape on the bike is so distinctive now, that without even looking at the television, my whole house knows what's coming. For me, when this comes on, I know The One Show is just seconds away.
The main colour scheme for BBC One and BBC One HD is post-box red. This ident mirrors this as the first colour we see on it is the red, worn by the bike rider (top left screen-cap.) A couple of shots later, the colour red starts intertwining with the traditional 'rainbow' colours, revealing a number of people riding bikes in a circle. This then ties in with the next significant feature that BBC One have, which is the circle.
The circle could just be a random shape they came up with, but with being the media student that I am, my guess is that a lot of thought went in to it. I've researched the lengths and depths of Google and I cannot find anything, but I'll just make an assumption. To make the ident identifiable to everyone watching, it has two have two distinctive features; colour and shape. With the colour being red, and the shape being round, it has a distinctive look that no other TV channel has. The circle could possibly indicate the 'O' on the word 'one'. Comparing it to BBC2, this seems possible, as BBC2 focus on the number '2' in their ident design.
Focusing on the ident subject, the bikers in the rain with multicoloured capes, this could be a significant feature to when the ident was broadcast on television. This ident was first seen on BBC One at 9pm in August 2009. According to the UK Met Office, the rainfall for this time of year was "above normal". This could possible coincide with the design and it being focused on the rainfall, as the camera partakes in a few shots of puddles and raindrops on the ground.
These are just 6 of many idents that BBC One have created for their pre-television show adverts. As you can see, all 6 of them focus on the circle motion, giving it the distinctive look again. The 6 themes used are also very modern, which could attract the younger audience, as well as the adults.
Commonly, there is a slight theme with these idents. I normally see the fairground one on a Saturday night, before an entertainment show. The hippos/kites are normally seen before things like Countryfile and The One Show. I think it's really important to have a certain target audience with idents, as it gives the viewers an insight as to what the show coming after it is possibly about.
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Designing idents with ITV
Matt Rudd had the responsibility of designing a brand new ITV logo that would appear on the television, website, advertisement posters, social networking sites, etc. "I wanted the ITV logo to get off the fence and stand for something. Alongside the informative BBC and the provocative Channel 4, ITV is friendly and warm. It brings about shared emotional experiences. I felt that the logo should be based on handwriting, and that the letters might be lower case joined up."
Rudd began sketching down his initial ideas to create a platform on which he could take off from. With the joint handwriting, the logo could be easily made into a moving image and look as if somebody was writing the text. This would then begin to match with his specification of "ITV is friendly and warm". It's important for graphic designers to keep their designs as simple, yet effective, as possible as this will give the ident as much lee-way as needed when creating short clips to put in-between television shows.
Incorporating logos into idents is a very significant feature that all television channels do, as it gives them a distinct and unique image, which people will associate with their favourite channels. Keeping them simple is also a key way of the audiences remembering the channel and who it is associated with in general.
These are the first digital copies of the newly branded ITV logo. Rudd stated "I wondered whether the use of symbols within the V might work across the sub-brands", such as ITV Love, Be, 2. In my opinion, I think this does work. The block colours make the logo and segments stand out compared to other brands, and has a warmth to it with being quite smooth, as the others tend to be quite square.
Designing the logo in the way Rudd did is such a clever idea, especially how he then compared it to other broadcasters'. It gives a clear sight of how it looks in comparison, and whether it's the right way to go with it or not.
Rudd then continued to design and play around with the ITV logo to see how it would look with different themes and how it would work across the sub-brands. From the beginning of the project, Mark Rudd and Rufus Radcliffe, group director of marketing and research at ITV, talked about the idea that the main channel would have many colours whilst other, more specialist channels, would have single colours. "Multiple colours would speak of the varied content on the main channel. In the first place, we looked at using the silhouette of the new logo as a window on an animating world of swirling colour."
The final job for Rudd was to pick a hero set of colours for use. The upbeat and modern colours are picked from across the colour spectrum to suggest the network's wide range of content.
I really, really like the new logo. As Mark Rudd stated, it captures the variety of content that ITV provides for its audience. The black may represent the crime dramas, whereas the green and orange could represent more upbeat shows such as reality entertainment shows, suitable for all ages.
I will take into consideration the design concept of Rudd's process when creating my logo and ident as it gives a clear step-by-step method that makes creating the final ident a lot easier, and it becomes more effective.
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