Opportunities and Limitations of Ident Design- Unit 32:

Assignment 2

Opportunities
Creation of corporate identity
A television company must create a brand for a channel that is globally
recognisable for the channel to succeed and generate high audience
viewing figures. The target audience for the channels are very important
to consider for television stations and companies when designing and
creating a new TV channel. This is because the TV development team
need to design their channel or station around a stimulus of a specific
target audience. This includes choosing a suitable age range for the
channel and if the channel will be orientated to a single gender or both.
As well as this, the channels whole identity is virtually based on the
overall theme of the channel, the programmes that they showcase and
the colours used in the aesthetic design of the logo and station itself. All of
these aspects of the design of a TV channel attract different types of
audiences, this makes it difficult for newly starting channels that have just
been commissioned to attract the audiences that they want to appeal to.

Branding of Content
An important part of creating a successful television station is developing
a globally recognisable brand that is memorable to customers and typifies
what the brand stands for. It can be difficult for TV stations to create a
unique name and identity as there are already so many currently existing
brands.
Imaging is also a key aspect to think about when trying to expand an
audience for a television station. The logo of a brand needs to stand out,
have a relevant theme and be simple enough to be memorable to an
audience. This is because the logo should represent the brand so when
people see the logo they instinctively think of the brand itself.
It is important for new brands and television stations to legally protect
their brand from others so that customers do not get confused with other
brands that may be similar. As well as this, others could potentially try to

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copy ideas from another brand or make another brand that seems quite
similar to an existing one.
One of the main purposes of a televisual ident is to increase overall brand
awareness of the channel that the ident is shown for. This means that the
ident is supposed to attract an audience that is suitable for the channel
and the programmes broadcasted on that channel. If this is done correctly
than the channel will eventually boost its general brand exposure.
Upon the conclusion of television idents, the aim is for the audience to
clearly recognise the channels logo which should be designed to be as
memorable as possible.
The ident should represent the overall theme and morals of the channel
that it is designed for as well as what the brand stands for in terms of the
television companies objectives.

Target Audience
Before a new brand is produced, research will need to be carried out into
various aspects of marketing and demographics. This is to ensure that I
develop a video advertisement that is aimed to a suitable target audience
and try to interest certain people to buy the product that I am advertising.
Trying to market my advert towards a certain age group will be important
as the product that I will be advertising is targeted towards a specific age
range as well.
As well as age, gender is also a key aspect to research and focus on when
developing a new TV station or brand of any type. Generally, a brand is
marketed towards either men or women, and are not normally aimed at
both. However, this is different for TV stations as there is such a wide
market and audience to broadcast to, that stations have to try to create a
televisual brand that is appealing to men and women in order to have a
high rate of audience viewings.
The type of content that the TV station will be broadcasting is a huge
factor in dictating a target audience for a brand. For example, If the
content is purely male orientated than it will attract a male audience.
The theme of a brand will also help determine a target audience for a TV
station and brand. If the theme includes male orientated aspects in terms
of the aesthetic designs of logos, names and various colour schemes then
men will most likely be attracted more to the brand than women.

Brand Loyalty
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Once a television brand is established and has built up a respectable

amount of audience viewing figures than the brand will eventually start
gaining a loyal fan-base. This means that people will start going back to
the TV station based on what experience they have previously. If
programmes broadcasted on a TV station give a positive response by an
audience, then certain audiences will consistently go back to the TV
station just because of past experiences.
Idents created by TV stations should also be memorable to an audience
and unique to the brand. It should characterise the TV station and the
brand as a whole. Idents should offer the audience a chance to briefly
preview the TV station instead of watching numerous amounts of content
to understand what the station is about. With this said, idents should
summarise the channel and the type of content that the TV station plan
on broadcasting.
Idents should be targeted towards the same target audience as the
channel itself in order to attract the same type of audiences. If the ident is
centred around a different type of audience as the station or brand than
audiences will get confused as to what the purpose of the station is. This
in turn will most likely decrease the audience viewing figures of a channel
as people will to some of the content that the station shows.

Creative Communications
Enhancing Ideas
After a new station has developed various
ideas for the brand and logo and has
decided on a single idea, then the company
will need to focus on developing the idea
for an ident as much as possible. This is so
that the ident and brand are kept
modernised and are in keeping with
modern day events. It is important that idents are kept updated in order to
keep the brand fresh and keep on attracting bigger audiences to generate
more business.
Once an idea for a brand is created than the general theme for the station
must be kept the same, in order for the audience to still be engaged by
the channel and its content and not be confused by a changing theme of a
station.
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Even though stations cannot drastically change their brands and idents,
they are able to creatively alter idents to keep audiences interested in the
station. Stations regularly do this to maintain their audience viewing
figures and try and attract more people to the channel.
TV idents are often kept to the same overall design and theme as previous
idents to make sure that the audience still recognizes the station and
brand the same. Usually, small alterations are made to idents and are not
changed dramatically because of this.

Pushing Technology
Various TV stations and channels tend to showcase their multimedia
abilities by developing numerous idents that are creative and imaginative
than other channels. A range of techniques can be used to produce a
creative ident. Animation and CGI are commonly used for developing
entertainment- led idents for relevant target audiences.
Sky are known to make many idents that are both information and
entertainment led. However, this depends which sky channel the ident is
designed for. The brand Sky Movies are recognisable for the creative
idents that they produce that often include multiple animations and
computer generated graphics to advertise movies broadcasted on several
channels.
As well as digital creativity and CGI animations, other stations design their
idents in different ways using different techniques. This can mean that
other than computer generated animations, idents could also be designed
in the real-world and not just on a computer.
The channel Comedy Central have done this with some of their idents.
Instead of an ident designed digitally, they used numerous actors to
feature in idents and filmed at picturesque locations to show that they are
unique from other channels and stations.

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Creating Under Pressure of Time and Budget

Before starting the creation of my ident, I was given an Individual Learning
Plan (ILP) by the client. This showed me what tasks I need to work on at
specific times and helped me keep track of what I have done and still
need to do.
I also created a Gantt chart which is another visual representation of the
learning plan, but made in Microsoft Excel. This helped me in the same
way as the ILP as I was able to see what I had to do at any given time.
By laying out all the tasks I had to do in this assignment and spreading the
work over about a week, I was able to choose what I wanted to work on
first and I could even go back to tasks to do work on them if I hadnt
finished. It also allocated me time to fully plan out my ideas for the ident,
collected relevant assets that I needed and then eventually develop and
design the TV ident. Well established TV stations also develop their idents
in the same way, by having a deadline to produce the work by and
working on small tasks individually.
If I was to design and produce the ident for an established TV station that
would eventually be commissioned and showed on TV, then I would have
a budget. The budget should be able to cover all financial costs of assets
that I may need when producing the ident. This includes all hardware that
will be used, the most important hardware would be a computer. Also,
software that I would design the ident on would be bought or rented with
the money out of the budget that the TV station gave me. In this case, I
used Macromedia Director. However, I would use a different software
editing programme to create a professional standard ident as Director
does not offer many options when developing a creative televisual ident.

Julian Thompson