13.9.11- We were assigned to our Ident brief and Tom (the client) gave us an introduction on the definition of an Ident and its purpose. We were told we had to make two blogs about the Purpose and Nature of Ident Design and the Success and Failures in Onscreen Graphics. We were also told to start coming up with our ideas for our own Idents. 

15.9.11- Began on the Ident research and blogs. I was finding it stressful when I was given more work from the other topics and we had so little time. I spent the morning in the Library and took out two Ident books to look through. I began drawing some idents up on paper

18.9.11- I spent the Sunday morning looking at Idents on youtube and took some ideas for my Ident and to use examples to go in my blogs.

20.9.11- I had my first client meeting to do with Ident names, I had come up with a list of names (alot of them were too cheesy and alot of them had already been made) but only Tom liked ‘Inside Creative’

23.9.11- Drawing and looking at more Idents.
http://www.theidentgallery.com/skyatlantic-2011.php 
I started to notice more idents whilst watching the television and began writing down what I liked about them and started audience target research. 

27.9.11- Client meeting with logo. I Had to explain to the client that I wanted to draw a camera lens and that I had tried drawing one on InDesign. We decided to then photoshop a camera lens but it went really bad. We then decided to take an acutal photo of a camera lens so I got Mark to help me set up the cameras and lighting in the Studio. I really liked the final image and showed it to the Client and he liked it too.

2.10.11- Started doing a series of Ident storyboards. I first wanted to film my ident but I got too carried away with my ideas. I made a contact sheet for my client.

4.10.11- I lost my storyboards and had to start again. I looked at more books in the library and looked at colour schemes.

11.10.11- Ident printed off on A3, it looked pretty good until I kept thinking it was too small compared to everyone elses idents.

18.10.11- Tried thinking of more themes of idents and looked on the internet. I had two project deadlines to be in this week so I had been focusing on them at the time.

1.11.11- Played on Motion software, I got the hang of it straightaway and I really enjoyed it.

8.11.11- Looked at everyone’s Ident so far and to see what we could improve, I had to improve my text. Finishing up research and development file such as scanning in my storyboards and making sure I have everything in my file. This was a bad day for me as the software wasn’t working like it was the week before and I seemed to have forgot how to do certain things. My mouse wasn’t working properly either so I was stressing out major breakdown.

9.11.11- I came in on the Wednesday to sort my text out as I don’t have the software at home. My final Ident was Finished and I was happy.

15.11.11- Final Ident was cleaned up to make sure it was all okay with the client and ready to be uploaded. I enjoyed the project altogether but it’s not my cup of tea if I had to do this as a career, but I know now from experience.

Have you ever thought about a companies Onscreen graphics strategy? and how it can be affected by the audience? 

Corporate identity can create a lot of opportunities. The McDonalds ident is a corporate identity. They use their ident in everything they distribute. So the appealed targeted audience only need to see the symbol and colour scheme and nothing else comes to mind, then rest of the audience are then influenced by the way McDonalds is perceived. It can be unsuccessful if they display their text based information in the wrong way when trying to get the message across. When the text is underneath it reinforces the company that they all have different slogans that get across what they do.

Branding of content explains what channels they show, what they do and who they target for. We can easily understand channels more when the idents are show for example,

BBC3 is for a teen audience so the logo has to be recognizable, if you watch closely more females watch this programme so they add more feminine pictures in such a lipstick or a pair of high heels.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqRDBcNV9_Y&feature=related

ITV2 is also for a teen audience and more targeted at females. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2v_iyRH0ME It shows celeb culture and gossip using sensationalism, the idents have different voices to fit together so that everything is thought about, designed and considered. Here is Itv 2’s boots/dance ident.

The creation of tone changes its mood within the time schedule such as high tempo, quick pace, academic and educated to suit the clients that they are going to produce stuff for, for example the CBBC blobs have a lot of opportunity because its full of entertainment, productions for TV shows have to appeal to kids.

Ident creators have to think from the word go. They need to determine a specific groups characteristics and why they watch the channel, the demographics of the audience and their lifestyle values because you wouldn’t want a family-orientated ident for a male in his 20’s.

BBC4 is very mundane, no music videos and is very serious. You’re meant to think whilst your watching with a hint of entertainment. Channels like ITV and BBC need to appeal to everyone but still have a broad audience, they are always in competition with all different idents branding the content that will be on shortly.

Incitement of brand loyalty favours one particular channel such as the content, that ident can help because you would flick on that channel first subconsciously, developing that brand loyalty because you remember its ident and the channels and your more likely to keep going back, For example E4 is for a teenage audience because it has the most interaction using the estings project http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8VBINLQ9ZU&feature=related it has a lot of animation and uses the same colour scheme throughout its other idents to represent the purple and white logo.

Lost connection with an Ident? There can be a lot of failures when it comes to creating the best ident, whether it’s too slow and you lose interest or the texture is too similar to another ident.
If you can’t read an ident because the size is too small, you can’t read the font or there is too much text it will not work, and if it doesn’t have any text underneath to simplify your new logo you aren’t going to appeal to your audience and just confuse them instead. Colour and music is important, for example you wouldn’t see bright pinks and pop music for a sports channel. The design could be too much in your face so you will need it very simple but with your own creativity and your own personal vision involved.
The ident can’t be over obstruct because then it wouldn’t be effective and there will be no participation when looking at the center and if you resize your Television title cropping does occur so you need it in the middle and not too big.

The Typography of an ident has to work with the audience and brand, if we use tough monkey productions as an example we can see
it is a production company, without that word we could have been guessing all day to what it represents. The picture explains it is a tough monkey and yellow is the first primary colour we see and black is bold meaning power so the symbol can be recognised straightaway so a lot of the time it can have a double interpretive meaning.

The resolution has to be clear and has to work on all platforms with technical knowledge (300dots per inch or pixels per inch) and to be good enough to be blown up and fit for intentional purpose because cross platforms for all devices can be a tricky time consuming thing.
There is the almost square 4x3 standard screen and the rectangular 16x9 widescreen (HDTV) and if you are using a 16x9 image onto a 4x3 screen you will have to have an edge crop that automatically puts black down the sides meaning you will have lost around 35% of the picture. A lot of people will instead letterbox so that the image is compressed back to normal but shows a black bar on the top and bottom meaning it is less distracting. When the image is 4x3 and wanting to be on 16x9 it won’t fit on the entire screen so the black is there to replace it which is called pillarboxing, you could always zoom in but it will create lower resolution and detail is lost. If you make a 1920 by 1080 it should end up as 16 by 9.

Analogue and digital transmission systems show the most new idents in HD. Some people still have analogue and it can have an affect whether it works or not because analogue is dying out and is a thing of the past however projection screens can still be analogue. If you don’t have an HDMI cable you cannot connect and support specific sources into HD. Scart cables are analogue (video yellow composite, stereo red and white) will not be used in the future as the step ladder has gone from analogue to digital to HD to 3D. A DVI port has to be digital at the end or it will be a digital process broadcasted in analogue.

Corporate identity theory is the brand image that runs through everything and is in three parts. The design, the behaviour and the communication.

When idents are produced they have to think of the identity they will be acknowledged like having their own mission statement because as long as the audience relate to the logo everything else can be tied in.

creative communication enhances ideas such as a clever way of doing it in ten seconds such as a flasmbob on the T-Mobile idents, it is an opportunity of success and failure but in a creative way by pushing the technology. Idents now have uses of CGI because better production companies have more time and money to beat other ident competitors so they will be under pressure. Idents like this make you see things in a different audience because everyone interprets different meanings.

An Ident is an opening short visual image of a symbolised brand name, used like a small advert (filmed or animation) to recognise a company mainly being

television and radio networks.
Idents show a diversity of information which basically tells you what channel you’re watching and what programme is coming up next whether that is avertedly or subconsciously (doesn’t say, just implies)  and using short bursts to grab attention. In the old days television presentation and promotion was about art and design and winning awards, branding was seen purely as a logo or a design issue, the focus was mainly on the on screen.
The purpose of an Ident was that channels needed more onscreen graphics especially when more channels were created. They needed some provided visual that defines them, originally to aid the narrator for the next programme.  As time went on the little symbols evolved to become little pieces of film. For example the bbc1 world circle broadcasted itself covering the world but they don’t have an empire anymore so they use pieces of footage, still containing the circle effect to show they are a complete package and there target audience is for everyone. Idents help create a BRAND.
Here is a clip from the 1963 BBC world globe
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT8N04pJfEk
then here is the more up to date BBC idents (still using the circle)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P62npJkxji4this ident can suggest nature programmes
and as the BBC are a public service they are supposed to educate, inform aswell as entertain.

When creating an ident it is always good to use space and time and screen tempo for a better advantage, they do this so you notice the main symbol that keeps you coming back to that channel.
The pace of an ident could be high octane, high drama and quick paced or it could be subtle, relaxing and gradual. The designers of Idents have to get this right to keep the viewer interested. They need to explain they have good shots within so many seconds.

Interaction with viewers means they want the ident to connect to you by drawing you in for example the E4 Idents let you design your own incitement of brand loyalty with their quirkiness, but ITV is more information lead with no interaction. They all use continuity announcements that have a narrator telling you what is on next. A lot of them have promo features highlighting what the programme has on tonight or for the next few coming days here is strictly come dancing ident http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQTA7C_FKjQ&NR=1 and this is a promo for bbc1s 2011 schedule. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybebio-VxGQ.

Representation plays a big role in idents because the channels can psychologically enable to say who we are, what programmes we show, and our ethic morals we stand for and what we are about. We can use channel 4 as an example,  Their  first ident showed all the blocks coming together to explain they provide for minorities who couldn’t afford to pay for the BBC channels, symbolising and representing their identity. It’s more diverse and controversial and they buy everything in commissions and only take control in making channel 4 news.  It is collective unlike bbc1.

If we use the sky sports ident we can explain all the related topics into one.
http://www.theidentgallery.com/player.php?id=SKYS-2010-ID-1-FOOTBALL-1  The ident makes you feel like you’re there when the fans are cheering, Wayne Rooney comes out of the TV screens (double meaning because he is in the premier league and also one of the most famous footballers) that are showing all the Uk teams, showing a variety of football (more strong on football) to suggest they are international with multiple interaction content with all channels. The colour scheme uses blues, reds and whites to match the football teams and the music has drum beats bringing tension like a football match then slows down when the glass comes through.

After so many years a company may wish to re package itself, meaning that they want to re brand themselves into something better with more in-depth communication, for example ITV4 re packaged itself from sports to re runs meaning it had changed or updated. Sometimes opportunities like a new season will mean a change of ident. Some idents are branded together so you recognise them more such as Pixar with Disney and the Warner brothers with harry potter.

A scheduled ident is when at a certain time an ident is appealed to different audiences so you know what’s coming on, such as daytime TV will be mainly for women, so a more feminine ident will be created to do with their favourite things. When a football match is on more masculine idents are then shown and with the news only very straight forward mundane idents are shown. Idents market themselves and adverts sponsor programmes to make money with the audience such as Coronation Street has a segmentation schedule where the ident was in the midweek section of prime time costing thousands of pounds. The segmentation schedule shows small mini idents for ad breaks to basically say stick with us. It breaks up sections of the programme to keep us watching and to know what channel you’re still watching.