T3 - Understanding the design of a suite of television idents

What is a suite of idents?

A Suite of idents are a collection of several idents that are all linked by some theme. This provides a variety of idents to choose from and makes it more interstin for the audience to watch. As well as maintain the channels theme or create a new brand identity in the case of a new channel.



Time and place

Having this variety of idents to choose from ensures the right type of ident appears next to the right program content, for example, a positive ident wouldn't be appropriate next to something such as "The Godfather". It is also useful to have different idents for different times of the day.





Re-branding a channel

New ident suites can help to rebrand a channel and change the image affiliated with this channel. This has happened recently with more4, who have changed from a mature channel with documentaries  to a more open ended channel.




 These 3 idents are part of the same suite for BBC1, and all use the theme of circles. They don't really appeal to a specific audience, unless its appealing to circle enthusiasts. They aren't aimed at a specific time of day but may be used before certain programmes, such as the hippo ident would be used before a documentary,  and the footballers before a sporty program. They're intended to be used throughout the year, and convey no particular message about the channel.

The 3 idents used the theme of circles in different ways, the 2 lower ones use live action, whereas the hippos are likely more CGI than entirely live action.

T2 - Understanding the limitations of the television ident

Typography

Typography is the art of type/text. And includes things such as the font and  the colour used for on-screen text. This can be limiting for idents as they may be restricted to using a certain font, but on the other hand it can be positive to have this limitation when designing idents as it creates a brand identity with the logo, so that its easily recognisable when seen. This can be seen with companies like the BBC and ITV, the only channels not using the standardised font are those with a specific target audience and programming e.g. kids channels like CITV and CBeebies, or BBC3 which appeals to more comedy and wouldn't fit the normal font.

Colour

Different channels use different colours to create a brand identity with their channel, for example, E4 use purple in their idents, and channel 5 use a lot of bright, luminescent colours. This can be limiting to the creator as they have to stick with specific colours.

Aspect ratio

The aspect ratio of idents must be 16:9 as to fit on the screen of most modern televisions, which present the image in this widescreen format. This doesn't really cause much of a limitation as it is just the size of a screen and is seen as standard.

Adhering to a desired tone
A channel ultimately wants to appeal to a specific audience, and can aid this with the use of idents, by identifying certain aspects of a channel, such as comedy central or BBC3. While avoiding others such as extreme acts of violence on a kids channel.



Duration

Most idents are over the 30 seconds we usually see, some are over a few minutes long to fill time if needed. As can be seen from the BBCs football ident.

T1 - Understanding the purpose of television idents and the opportunities they present

Identifying the Channel

The first Ident was seen on the BBC in 1953 with the development of more than one channel,
audiences needed to know what channel they were on. The BBC ident was nicknamed "Bat's Wings" due to its look. Over time the idents have improved with newer technologies and the circular format for the BBC indent was introduced in 1962, showing a map of Britain split into the regions they broadcast in, inside a circle. After this the famous "Globe" ident was introduced in 1963.






Organising the Schedule

Idents can be used to organise a channel's program schedule by informing the audience what is on the channel at what time and to potentially entice the viewer to stay and continue watching instead of changing channels, for example with this ident from BBC Parliament.



Segmentation of the scheduling

Non commercial channels such as the BBC do not have time to show ads programs and use indents for a multitude of reasons;
      -To provide information about the channel/programmes
      -To promote other programmes on the channel
      -To regulate the channels schedule/fill time between programmes
      -To provide a break for studio workers such as on news or sport programmes

Creating the right tone and appealing to the target audience

Indents can be used to advertise what sort of channel it is, which is vitally important for a channel to have, appealing to the right target audience. This was done well by BBC4, initially, to show off a more factual and intellectual channel


Creating a brand and encouraging brand loyalty

Building a 'brand' for a channel is vitally important to its success, idents help to endorse a channel logo or name so the audience recognise it instantly, like the E4 ident is easily recognisable from its almost surreal setting. And encourages loyalty to the channel.


Creating corporate identity

Channels are no longer limited to one country, and as a result idents have become increasingly helpful to create channel brands in other countries. These create a corporate identity that can be sold worldwide and diluted to be used across multiple platforms, e.g. Online, TV, etc. providing a constant theme across platforms.

Packaging and Re-packaging a series of programmes or event

Idents have been used to identify that a particular program belongs to that channel, for instance 'Dave' has an ident for Storage Hunters. This was also done by BBC3 when they had coverage of the olympics.