The Purpose and Design of Idents

7/29/2019 The Purpose and Design of Idents

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The Purpose and Design of Idents

Idents are meant to brand a channel by giving the viewer a clear concept of what the

channel is about such as what it presents e.g. a comedy channel or a channel of

drama, it is like a snapshot of the channels personality.

This ident is most likely aimed at people who are in their late teens to possibly

people in their late 30s. The reasons for this is because this ident is for a nature

channel called Eden as shown in the ident, it features a vast landscape of complete

snow and a single man wondering across looking for something. This ident tells us

this is a discovery programme and

therefore the audience knows what

to expect to be presented when they

see this ident, which will be a

programme most likely on

Antarctica. There is a lack of

animations other than the title ofthe channel Eden popping up on the

screen with a circle going around it.

The circle going around the word

Eden represents the world similar to what the BBC has but in this circumstance it

symbolizes what they will document around the planet. Because there is a lack of

animations our focus becomes purely on the natural elements around at this point.

This ident may have been made for a documentary on Antarctica so because of

seeing the snow from the ident we know what type of specific programme to see.

Here we have the SkyNews ident, the length

of the ident is pretty

short which may tell

us that they present

to us news very

quickly and

everything in their

station is quite fast

paced and exciting where as the BBCs News ident is pretty slow and takes over 30

seconds before the programme actually starts so because theirs is a lot shorter it

may tell us their better because they get their news in faster and dont waste their

time with long intros when there are more important things to get through theprogramme.. The purpose of this ident is simply to tell the audience that this is a

news station so that they know exactly what they should expect when they see this.


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The Comedy Central indents purpose is to show this is a channel dedicated to the

youth and entertaining people with comedy as we see in the animation a great land

mark of England destroyed by the logo of their animated channel, seeing part of the

houses of parliament destroyed tells us that this channel is dedicated to bringing

programmes that the youth will enjoy, the reasons for this is because the houses of

parliament and Big Ben is considered to be in the interests of old people andsomething that the youth are not actually that interested in so they have taken this

idea and then

destroyed a English

landmark. The

animation is of a big

scale which feels like

an alien invasion

which would grab a lot

of attention so it has

big name programmes

people want to see such as; Two and a Half Men, Friends, King of Queens, Frasier,South Park and Scrubs. These are all big name shows so to show the audience that

their big they have made this ident which stands out compared to the idents the BBC

have which the youth may call boring as there is nothing happening and enjoy this

one a lot more as there is more stuff going on which young people would find

amusing. The purpose of the ident is to purely entertain the audience and get a

response put of them to put them in the right state of mind so that their able to

enjoy the next show coming on, we know it is here to entertain us because the youth

would find an animation of destruction on a English landmark quite humorous as it

is old and boring and because it sets us in the right state of mind it gets the audience

ready with programmes which are quite comical. Also ident lets us know what type

of channel this is so that we know what to expect from it.

With BBC One being such a large channel that presents many different types of

programmes throughout the day depending on what type of audience they are

expecting for a

programme they

keep very neutral

idents and ones

that dontnecessarily tell

you about whattype of

programmes the

channel has like most other TV stations but because it changes the ident on rotation

it tells the audience that they have a variety of channels, also idents are quite

expensive to make so the fact that the BBC has so many tells the audience that it has

a large amounts of programmes. Also this ident has along with all the other idents

the red circle going around the BBC, this is because the circle represents the world


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and therefore tells us that they have programmes that will interest different

ethnicities and cultures. The purpose of the ident is less clear than other idents that

the BBC has such as the one that involves footballers kicking a ball, when that one is

shown we know to expect a football show next, however with this ident its purpose

appears to be to change the mood of the audience from low to happy, the reason for

this is because everything at the start is very dark and gloomy however by the endof it there are bright colours on the screen with high key lighting which stands out a

lot more and makes the progamme seem bigger.

Another ident the BBC has is this one, unlike the one previous where you could tell

the purpose was to show the audience that the channel has a variety of different

channels hence why

no ident is similar this

one stands out, the

reasons for this is

because this ident

was made to only gowith one programme

which is Match of the

Day. Through looking

at this ident we can

clearly see that the

purpose of this ident

is to show the audience and let them know that a sports show is coming on. Yet

again they have kept the circle showing that they are a diverse station, which is why

they continue to keep the red circle in all of their idents. The purpose of this ident is

to let the audience know what type of programme is coming on which in this case is

a football show (Match of the Day). Because the ident has been one for a particularshow its whole purpose in the time that it is run is to inform the audience and also

to entertain them to an extent with the tricks the people in the ident are doing.

The design of a ident will vary from one another due to the differenence in the type of

channel being shown, most notcieable changes in an ident will be the tempo of it for

example in a nature channel it will have aslow and relaxing pace to it as it wants to get you

in the right state of mind rather using fast paced cuts which would make you feel more

enegergtic and expectic a type of channel that will show a lot of action. The music in an

ident will also be different similar to the tempo of the channel, with the music wheather its

diegetic or non-diegetic the it will either be quite slow and peacful like the ident the BBC

uses with the Hippoes or it can be quite fast and upbeat like the Sky Sports news identwhich is very fast paced in terms of sound as it is trying to get across that its a fast pacedchannel bringing in the latets news constantly.

As you can see from below this is an ident for Comedy Central. The channel being a

comedy channel would want to have an ident that suits it therefore in this example

they have gone for something quite commical due to it being so big and the fact it


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chalenges the establishment which is quite old and dated it becomes quite funny to

watch even though we see a iconic English landmark get destroyed in the proccess.

In a channels

ident the

designs for

them willfeature the

TVs channelstheme colours

so in this example it is red,black and white and in other case with the BBC it is red

and white. They want the colours of the ident to be bold so that they stand out to the

audience which makes them seem bigger therfore the audience will remember the

channel more. In this ident the actual logo in itself is quite basic but because of what

it is doing it makes it seem more interesting and different to what you would epect

to see on a dailky basis for a channel. On the ident you will also see the name of the

channel so that you can remember it more. As shown here the name of the channel

is put in big bold letter that way it will stand out more and looks better rather thanhaving all lower case letters. This type of ident is more for entertainment, the reason

for this is because there is no information about the channel such as programming

so because of its humerous design its their purley for entertainment. The tempo of

this ident as been made to be very quickly which suggests to the audience that the

content this channel has to offer is quite fast paced humour with constant things

going on in their episodes.

With the BBCs identit is quite a basic

design which has noanimations but has

gone for a more

natural look, the

tempo is very slow

compared to others

which is because it is going to show a documentrary so it tries to set a peacful and

relaxed mood.however if they was just to stay with this type of ident it would be

thought of as a documentary channel so they use more than one to inform the

audience of what type of show is going to be shown next for example here is another

ident of the BBCs, with this one they have gone for something completely different

to the previous one because it is a different type of programme showing and nowthere are

no exotic

aniamls

and also it

isnt asbright as

the


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previous one, this ident looks more to be in the English country-side. Also what both

the idents have in common is the circle that goes round their channel name BBCOne in the center of the page, the reason they have kept a similar design for the

circle going around their channel name is because the BBC is considered a global

channel that targets where it appeals to a big audience so it has to aquire channels

that different ethnicities like so the cirlce represents the globe of the Earth, also theyhave a common colour in red where it appeals in all of their idents, the reason for

this is because red is quite a bright colour and stands out more so they keep red in

their designs because it stands out to the audience which may inply that their

channel is better than their competetors such as ITV and therefore use the colour

red to grab the attention of the audience. Another thing about the BBC designs is

that they are pretty much always changing their designs for their idents for

example, the idents of 2002 only last for four years and the idents followed only

lasted for 3 years before being replaced by these current ones, this tells us that the

BBC is a very active channel and feels the need to change in order to stay ahead of

the times and keep appealing to the huge audience that is continuesly growing

because if they where to leave their idents for too long and they became out datedthe new audiences that would watch the BBC may see their ident and be detered

away due to them getting a misconception of the ident and what the BBC has to offer

to the public. The idents the BBC have a very slow paced which suggests to the

audience that its a very calm station and has less action going on in their shows as

their audience is more mature and dont need so many things going on at once tokeep them entertained as long as there is a good story line such as Eastenders.

Another ident that has a very good design is the ITV ident, the reasons for this is

because the colours they have chosen are very bright and give of a happy mood.

They have kept the

actual design verysimple however due

to its bright colours it

makes the audience

feel more inclined to

watch the channel as

they would expect the

programmes on this

to be quite happy and

also new, the reasons

for them expecting

the programmes to benew is because the

ident is very bright, this may be to show the audience that all of their programmes

are all new with used hi-tech equipment to make their products and therfore they

stand out more. Also like the BBC where they used red to make their ident stand out

ITV has decided to use bright summery colours such as yellow and have bright

green trees in the background with clear blue skyies, because they have gone with


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this approach it makes the audience feel more calm. The whole ident gives you a

good concept of what the channel.

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The Purpose and Design of Idents