We have now had just over a month to digest the multi-million pound ITV rebrand and the votes are in.
Established in 1955 as a competitor to the BBC, ITV is the largest and oldest commercial television network in the UK. Under the ITV umbrella are five channels: ITV1 (now just ‘ITV’), ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, and the children’s channel CITV, and between them they cover everything from reality TV to sports to drama to sitcoms to children programming. Historically they were always a less serious version of the BBC.
The new ITV rebrand and logos were revealed to the nation on 14th January 2013 at 6am and the new logos form the basis of all ITV’s branding, domestically and internationally, and is a bold, warm, bright and less formal version than the previous block fonts. The logo is supposed to be formalised lowercase handwriting to give it a friendly feel and the merge of five bold colours adds a sense of life perhaps missing from the previous designs. The company’s flagship channel ITV1 has lost its 1 which is a big change even if, let’s face it, most of us hasn’t even noticed!
The new multi coloured ITV rebrand design comes with its challenges, as is not framed like the previous logos it can get lost when placed on coloured backgrounds. This has given ITV the opportunity (and necessity) to adapt the colours depending on what background it is placed. This is called ‘colour picking’ and means that the logo can be ever changing – shifting tone along with the content, reflecting and blending with the mood of different shows.
The change in brand was the biggest change ITV have been through in 12 years. Undertaken by the ITV’s in-house design team ‘ITV Creative’ in partnership with outside agency Rudd Studio, who between them created a ‘pop-up’ studio to house a team of 15 or so creatives. London type designers ‘Fontsmith’ were commissioned to finalise the logo and develop a supporting bespoke typeface to help bring consistency to the brand and its positioning of being at the heart of popular culture – named after the expression ‘It’s well reem’ made famous by ITV show “The Only Way is Essex”, ITV Reem was born as a four weight sans serif.
We like many others (See the Daily Mail article http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2262525/ITV-logo-ridiculed-channel-rebrand.html ) were initially unsure of the new logos as it was quite a radical change to the traditional more serious bold type face we were used to seeing and associating with ITV. The primary colouring looked somewhat garish and ‘in your face’ is quite overwhelming with five colours on only three letters. However on reflection it seems like a good move, the logos are as some put ‘more childish’ and playful but when we start delving into the ITV schedule of programmes that top their charts we can understand how this would appeal to their primary audience. When X factor, Dancing on Ice, The Only Way is Essex, I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and Love in the Wild are you best assets you need to work with what you have: colourful, fun, playful pop culture and this the essence of the new logo. The fact that it can be made more serious when it needs to be with the clever (planned or unplanned) colour picking on programmes like the News means it can get away with the cheeky logo across the board.
With all changes it has taken a few weeks to warm the new ITV logo but we think it’s bold and radical change to their branding represents their current strategy and direction brilliantly and it will soon become an icon of the company for generations.