TV idents and identities: which were best and which were worst in 2015?

Date
14 January 2016

Alasdair Lennox is executive creative director for EMEA at design agency Fitch, which has worked with clients including H&M, Stella McCartney, Lego and Morrisons. Here, he outlines which TV idents of last year he felt were the frontrunners and which where the duds.

TV idents are instrumental in depicting a television channel’s brand identity. If well executed a channel’s brief video/visual image can really set it apart and be a great promotional tool. But if not, an ident could very well damage a channel’s brand. Spending a lot more time than usual in front of the TV over Christmas, I was exposed to a flurry of TV idents, some outstanding in their topical simplicity – hitting the mark when it comes to being provocative. Others however were less impressive in my mind, and could do with a rapid infusion of originality.

Hitting the right spot

A brand new arthouse drama channel Walter Presents launched on 1 January, with a flat, simple logo and identity. A personal favourite of mine and far from the all-singing, all-dancing branding of its mainstream rivals, Walter Presents is not bogged down by animation or complex graphics. Impressively considering its arthouse niche, it avoids the pitfall of presentation that many might expect from a specialist in subtitled foreign content.

For me, what really sets this TV ident apart from so many other busy, unremarkable branding identities, is that its signature device on the logo conveys a key aspect to the brand. It is curated by Walter, a man who set out on a mission to find and collate the best TV drama from around the world. How many channels can you think of that have such a strong, personal, hand-made touch? We have yet to meet UKTV’s free-to-air “Dave”, after all.

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BBC Three

Confusion all round

Speaking of the much-loved personal touch, BBC Three has recently been at great pains to explain the rationale behind its three-pillar logo. The third pillar, the exclamation mark, is designed to convey the individual’s voice, which BBC Three exists to champion. The trouble here is BBC then needed to spell it out to the press, and amid the confusion and mockery on social media (and endless W1A series comparisons), the BBC may have been wondering why something so integral to their proposition remains so cryptic in their branding. Yes, being unique is crucial, but so is being understood by your audience.

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BT Sport

In need of a revamp / Way off the mark

While Christmas was good to BT Sport, I can’t say the same for its TV identity, which seems to be stuck somewhere in the 1980s. It’s true that because of the holiday season, a great selection of high-profile fixtures likely had millions of viewers tuning in to the channel, but amid its competitors, BT Sport’s brand comes out looking rather worse for wear.

The main reason for this is at the heart of Walter Presents’ triumph and BBC3’s shortfall: using the logo to convey a clear sense of what the brand is and who it’s for. Football might be a broad church, with an identity and appeal that viewers of all kinds can relate to, with its sense of style, dynamism and glory. And yet – none of these aspects are reflected in BT Sport’s logo, which has shoe-horned the BT brand’s coloured spheres in to a lockup and includes a new font just for “Sport”, one that seems out of sync with BT’s wider brand as it currently stands.

All in all this adds up to something rather generic and all too heartless – completely at odds with the passion that football fans have for the game and their teams. It’s a shame really, considering BT’s legacy, and the exceptional collateral and resources at its disposal. It is, after all, one of the UK’s biggest broadcasters for our nation’s most-loved sport.

Pure and simple

I’d say BT needs to take a leaf from Walter Presents’ book, and give its personality the emergence it deserves. The challenge will be in avoiding the trappings of big budget rebrands, with little to no impact on its viewers or brand. The magic lies in maintaining an identity that is pure, simple and yet still compelling. With competition now rife, it’s time for the old and tired TV idents to be more provocative and adopt a topical visual identity that sets them apart.

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Alasdair Lennox

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