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Digital Idents Write up

Design for Idents Essay A1 Task 1

Before I start plan and create my Ident I will first have to understand the theory history and uses of TV Idents and some of the methods that are used to create them.

Theory

Theory of TV Idents covers identifying the channel you are creating for; why you are making it and who for. When creating TV Idents it is important to know the channel you are creating it for. What you would need to know what kind of channel they are if they are public service like the BBC or Independent like E4. This will decide if the animation for the ident will be funny or professional. This will help with the use of colours you are limited to so you the public will know what channel they are on instantly by the colours of that channel like the white and purple while the BBC is Red and white.

This will help make the identity of your channel solid and everyone will recognise it because of the colours and animations. The reason for creating idents is to make the public remember what channel they are watching on so that they understand that the programme they are watching is represented by whether it’s the BBC or another channel.

Idents are also created to keep you focused and distracted from other channels and make sure you stick to the channel you are currently on. How they would do this is to make the Ident eye-catching. You can do this in many ways by making your company logo you’re representing bright and loud with light colours and audio that makes you pay attention to the screen. Or you can make it beautiful and serene being very calm and nice to look at to draw the watchers attention.

Another use of idents in media is title cards and logos in movies or advertising. Examples of idents in movies would be in the title credits that shows that companies that were involved with making the movie. This is to make people know that they were involved with the making of this movie or TV programme.  This helps with marketing when other companies and people who want to make movies and TV shows see’s that you were involved they may want to hire you. This is why having an ident is so important it can help you stand out and get more noticed by other clients.

These are what idents are and how they are used to draw the attention of the audience to keep them on your channel or make them remember that you were involved with the show or movie they just watched.

History

The history of idents began with the BBC in early 1950s. They first showed a logo in between programmes to show the public what service they were watching on. At the time the technology allowed them to use simple still black and white images which look so professional in its time when coloured TVs began coming to the UK. After that the digital service came to the UK as well with lots of new programmes for the company to air. So they would have to come up with new branding and better idents as time went on and improved technology and with more shows to have breaks between when they were over and to help stand out from the competitors at other channels that were advertising at the time.

The first BBC ident was nicknamed “Bat Wings” because of the design looking like a bats wings at the sides or pieces of machinery. Later however their most famous logo was the globe with the BBC TV logo and announcement of it being shown would run the channels ident for a long time and helped see the launch of their second channel BBC2.

Much later after the design changed so much they had created a new ident and logo for themselves. The BBC part stayed the same but the colour scheme was now red overall with parts of white to make important details stand out. This relaunch gave the channel its new logo as well with the box gotten rid of with just lowercase takes that just says “one”.

A circle design is now featured in all the idents now to help thicken in the channel name is BBC one. Some of the idents that are mainly seen is the little drone going in circles on the moon, the hippos swimming in a circle and the roundabout of cars.

Uses of Idents

Idents are important to a channel being remember and getting watch time so it is important to know what is uses are and why they’re helpful.

Density of information

The density of information in TV Idents in short is putting all the information that the public needs to know into a simple logo or animation that explains what your company is all about and tells them what channel they are watching their program on. They make an ident by picking the best bits of information that describe you and the company you are representing and you combine them all into a logo or animation. This then shows the viewer what type of company you are or what type of person you are by simply looking at your Ident. The viewer can then tell what type of industry you are in like news or SC-FI shows by the design and colour choices of your logo.

Space and Time

Space and Time is also an important use in TV Idents. Depending on the amount of space you use on an ident or how short or long you make it can affect how well it looks. Spacing can make or break a good ident. The spacing could be down to the spacing of text or numbers on your ident being too close together being hard to read or too far apart looking terrible. Finding the balancing in this is important to have a good looking ident.

The Spacing of images in your ident is important as well if it looks squished or stretch out it won’t look very appealing and making sure that it isn’t too far from the text so it doesn’t make any sense what the text is referring to or not to close so as not looked bunched up; just finding a middle ground where both the text and image work well together.

The time of an ident also affects how it is received. You want it to be fast enough so you get all the information across about your company and the channel the viewer is on while being entertaining and not long so they would get bored and change channel. If it is too fast the viewer won’t be able to see or remember you or if too slow the viewer may remember you but in a bad way because you are eating up time that they could be using to watch the show you channel is on and they may start not to like you and change channel.  

Screen tempo

The screen tempo of a TV ident is also important technique can affect the viewer by grabbing their attention to your ident or even making them remember you the next time one of your idents comes on. Screen tempo is when the video is cut very fast paced to match the music that it’s being overlaid with. The music is usually fast paced club music that you would dance to so this will definably draw the viewers’ attention to the screen that this sound is coming from thus getting them to look at your logo. However this doesn’t work very well for you if your company isn’t in the energetic or load part of the media industry so using this technique may backfire.

Interaction with viewers

An interaction with your viewer in some way is also a good technique to get your viewers to know and remember you. This can be done by adding a feature liking telling them to press the red button on the remote and the ident will move slightly like a jump. Even though it isn’t a lot it is still some interaction with the viewer that can get them to help remember you more. Another example of this is the way google has interactivity with their logo it will either give you some information based on the theme that google is presenting or little games that they have made for certain holiday events.

Information-led

Information-led is also important to having a good TV Ident. What this is you using you ident to give the viewer information to lead them to other products that are also under your brand like websites; channels or social media. They can do this by having information at the bottom of the ident like an email address; a phone number to contact them and links to show they have social media like Facebook or Twitter and if the viewer takes an interest in your style they may try to contact you through these methods and this can get you more business. Also a voice over or narration of who you are what your company does can also works as well. This is what information-led is and how it can be used for TV Idents.

Entertainment-led

Entertainment-led is similar to information led but handles itself differently to get the viewer to see or like your ident. An entertainment ident is more focused on getting the viewer entertained and keeping them entertained less than getting information about themselves across like the other method. This method makes sure that you are focused on the ident and making sure it looks as good as possible to represent the brand of the company that made it while still making an impression to make the viewer remember what channel they are on. This is what the entertainment-led method is and how it’s used.

Identity

Identity is what your ident looks like and what it represents to you and your company. The identity all depends on the colours and styles that you use for the company, an example of this would be like football teams having their colours that everyone remembers them as and the choice of style in the design or images can tell you if they are a good team or not. People will look at that design and colour scheme and make that click in their head so they know that this is your brand and you are watching something they created or were a part of. And identity would be used to be recognised all over the world by the public and other companies to be hired to work to improve their identity since they would see how good yours is.

Branding & marketing

The uses of branding and marketing is also another part to know when creating TV idents. Branding is a lot like identity where you have a design and style that everyone knows you as, you would then multiply this by distributing it to other channels to display to get used on their networks and get paid. This will help make your brand bigger and then be able to be identified all around the world.

Marketing is similar to branding with a few differences. For marketing you or your company’s ident must first have a brand identity and content for the branding before the marketing it because there is no point in trying to see a product that has no content. If you add extra information to your ident like contact details to their social media, emails and numbers this can help increase the viewers interest by seeing other products you have created online and this will increase your viewing numbers as well. Also with them now knowing your social media you can spread your marketing faster and wider through the whole world using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube; this can help get more clients and sell more.

Packaging and re-packaging

Packaging and re-packing is also an important use for your TV idents. This is what would be discussed when making deals with companies and their channels if making idents for them or yourself. You would redesign some of their old logos to be more modern and mainstream while still keeping their company’s identity intact. This is done to appeal to the audience more as some may start to wonder from other channels. Re-packaging is more dependent on the amount of views you channel gets if it is low then the ident will be rebranded and repackaged but if the views are good nothing will be rebranded and repackaged unless told so.

Scheduling:

Scheduling is an important use of TV idents as well. Scheduling is different depending on who you are making the ident for whether it be a company or for yourself timing parts out can greatly increase progress and better development of the ident. Most idents are shown during adverts and is the norm for most idents because it fills in the time well enough and is repeated enough through the day that the viewer will definitely remember it.

Also making specific idents for the time of year as well is a part of scheduling by making idents themed around the holidays. Examples of this would be warm colours for spring and summer while for autumn orange and browns for that time of year. Pinks for Valentine’s Day, dark colours for Halloween and cold colours and snow for Christmas, this is what scheduling is and how it is used for TV idents.

Segmentation within scheduling

Segmentation within scheduling is used in TV idents to split up the scheduling so that everything is spread apart correctly so that nothing is in the wrong place so all the holiday idents will all be shown at the right time rather than too late and you’ve missed the chance to use it. This is what segmentation is and how it is used in scheduling to manage the time spread of when the idents would be shown for specific seasons and holidays.

Examples of Idents

One example of TV ident would be ITV 1. They stuck with very simple black text and a yellow box for a long time. This was probably made with a gradient box for the yellow that the text will be in and then a white box put near the end to make a separation gap for the 1 to go in. the text was then made and positioned to where they wanted it. The purpose of this design was to look clean and professional but overtime it started to look dated so ITV made a new ident. This one is mainstream and still professional looking. With the use of many colours to draw the viewers’ attention and the calm smooth lines of the letters even though they overlap.

E4 is another example of a good ident. Its purpose is an entertainment channel in the line of all the other 4 channels. While 4 have many colours over the years they mainly stick with white and add in the other colour to help make it stand out. Most of its idents are 3D so they were made in a 3d modelling and animating software. While the logo its self was probably made in illustrator. They probably used the text and line tool to create the shape first and then coloured in the cooperate colours that were chosen for this channel.