What is a Suite of Idents? A suite of idents is a small group of different idents that all have the same/similar theme which links together (this help create brand identity). When a TV channel decides to create a new ident, they don't just make one, they make a suite. Having a suite of idents instead of just one ident provides different variety and interest for the audience, it will help them to appeal their channel's target audience and entertain the viewers to stay on their channel. MTV Classic's Suite of Idents:
What is the theme of the suite?
The theme of this MTV Classic's suite of idents is a mixture of animated, futuristic, innovative and retro theme. This show that the channel have a mixture of old-fashion and future/present music. The mp3 stereo and the boombox represent old school/retro and the robot and the video-game cyberspace world represent future.
How/why the theme appeals to the viewers?
The theme appeal to the viewer by creating a nostalgic/evocative tone for the audience, you could see retro/old-fashioned objects such as CD, boombox, dance outfit and MP3 stereo player which could bring nostalgic feeling to the audience. As the channel aims to broadcast all of MTV’s shows and music videos from the last 35 years, the retro-theme seems a perfect fit. The ident suite is creative as it takes the audience from the past to the future by making outdated items become alive and futuristic, this give subtle hints that the channel will be playing old and new music. At 0:25, the third ident was very colourful and creative and also dramatic. There was some 3D shapes flying about in the room like the character is playing in a video-game/cyberspace world. That ident could suggested that the channel is for young people because of the technology and gaming theme and the electronic music was being used.
Explain whether, how and why the idents are information-led or entertainment led?
This suite of idents is mainly all entertainment-led but there's slight information-led, the idents were fast-paced with the beat music as their audio, their idents reflect their music programme they broadcast on their channel. There was no information-led as there was no voiceover or text that inform the audience on what coming up next, although the type of the genre that's shown in some of the ident could be subtle hints on what type of genre music programme is coming up next. For example, in the first ident the guy was playing the electric guitar (futuristic) and is wearing a rockstar outfit which both connotes "Rock" music, so when this ident is shown it could mean Rock music genre programme is coming next after the ident. They made their idents interesting and to appeal their channel's target audience and entertain them.
What does the suite convey about the channel's Brand Identity? How they have used the same theme in different ways to create Brand Loyalty?
This suite of ident is connecting to the older audience by bringing out the youth in them. Their brand identity is bringing thing alive and retro. Their idents were bringing outdated items alive which seems very futuristic, lively and energetic and also dramatic. As they kept the same theme (which is retro) and also their logo were shown in the middle of the screen at the end of each ident throughout the suite of ident, this creates brand loyalty. The MTV Classic's idents helps to endorse the brand of the channel by allowing the audience/viewers to become familiar with the logo and the style of the channel.
How effective the design of the suite is in communicating Visual information to a non-visual audience, appealing to a target audience; and the audience appreciating of desired tone?
I felt the design of this suite idents was very effective, it appeal to the channel's target audience in a satisfying and convincing form to make the audience stay on the channel longer and not be put off by it. Some of the ident in this suite reflect that this TV channel airs music genre programmes. They has all kind of retro/outdated items in different ident which then turn futuristic which gives us lively and energetic tone. Having a suite of ident provides variety and interest for the audience.
How effective the design of the suite is (Typography, Pace, Density of Information, Brand Identity) The pace was very fast especially with the beat music which is effective because the sound goes really well with the visuals on screen. It uses a fast pace to keep people interested in the ident and to draw them in. The idents was very creative and interesting because its doing what its supposed to which is brand the channel and maintain their audience interest. They also kept their same logo in the middle of the screen through this suite of Ident at the end of each ident. There wasn't really information on the screen except their logo to inform the viewers what channel they're on, the purpose of the idents was entertain to the viewers to stay on their channel and to brand the channel.
Corporate Identity is an opportunity. Every TV channel have their cooperate identity through their logo or their Ident collection, it allows for each of them to receive independency in their identities and not appear the same. There's another way to create cooperate identity to be more recognisable and well-known. It depends what material they show on their channel and what ratings the programmes is. It's highly recommend for a TV channel to create a Cooperate Identity, their ident will become recognisable based on the material they show their audience. If their audience love it, their ratings will increase and the TV channel will be recognised by more people around the world. This is an opportunity because they are able to show their aims, mission and values of their company.
An example of this is BBC 1. There are other BBC's brand identities such as BBC 2, BBC 3 and BBC 4. This ident was the very first BBC ident (1963) which established the corporation identity of BBC. You could see the circle/globe which was the main theme through many BBC's idents to 2016. Branding of content
Branding of content is an opportunity which linked with marketing, entertainment and information-led. It's when a TV channel is known for the programmes that it broadcast. For example, BBC One has a programme called The Voice, which was exclusive on BBC One at the time, currently now on ITV. This was a special ident to introduce/promote the second series of the The Voice back in 2013. The four judges were seen in their revolving chairs then the camera rests on the view of the stage from behind the microphone.
The reason why TV channels include footage of a specific programme into their ident to notify the viewer on how that specific channel can only show that TV show. For example if you want to watch The Voice, you only can go on BBC One as they have all the broadcasting rights. This ident can help get many viewers as possible in order to keep the show going otherwise there's no point as they'll be wasting money and will need to cancel the show. This is an opportunity of branding because it promotes the channel content as well as the brand. It also encourage brand loyalty. Creation of tone
As for creation of tone, the designers need to make sure the idents give off the right tone towards the audience and that the image the audience obtain is something that links the idents to the type of programmes they air. With the creation of tone it is not just the footage you see on screen but also the audio you hear. When a TV channel pick a tone, it's usually based around the types of programmes they show on their channel. In order for the designer to know if it give off the right tone by setting up a focus group with audience of all ages to watch the suite of idents and then they'll give their opinion to the designer. This way will help give the designer more important information on whether they need to improve anything. For example of creation of tone, Sumo TV. Through this suite of idents, we can suggest that this TV channel incorporates a violent/unusual theme which was demonstrated through the visuals such as a UFO killed a cow with an hammer or a dinosaur got hit by an asteroid. This is considered as opportunity as it gives an insight of what the channel is about. The colour red symbolises violence and death which was incorporated in the ident. It's also a opportunity to allow the TV channel to be successful and appeal to its target audience.
Appeal to target audience
Idents must appeal to the channel's target audience in a satisfying and convincing form to make the audience stay on the channel longer and not be put off by it. And also the idents must have a target audience in order to help the ident designers to focus, to make sure the ident reflect different genre programmes that airs on the specific channel. One example where an Ident would not appeal to the target audience is if a children's channel like Disney Channel was to show a footage of a horror with scary suspense thrilling music. Disney Channel is aimed at children (pre-teens) and young teenagers, having an Ident that show footage of a 18-rated horror film like Human Centipede with very suspense and thrilling music as their ident whereas Disney Channel is a channel for children. So having an ident that shows age-restricted footage of a deranged surgeon who kidnaps three people and turning them into a "human centipede" will definitely not appeal to the target audience and you should be expecting a handful of complaints.This is an opportunity as it allow you appeal to a target audience in different ways.
This is Nickelodeon's ident. Many of its programmes are aimed at children between the ages 8–16. The colours are very bright which are eye catchy and the tempo is quite fast paced. This ident uses marketing as they included faces of each most-known characters from different programmes on Nickelodeon. You could see different characters from Nickelodeon's original TV shows such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Kung Fu Panda, iCarly, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and more which are all aimed at kids. They use these characters to make their audience to watch their programmes and stay on their channel as they're reminding the audience their favorite characters which create Brand Loyalty.
Task 2B
Typography
Typography is a technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable, and appealing being displayed. It's one of the limitations for ident designers when making idents. It sometimes depends on the footage to get the right typography. For example, if the footage was really bright and the text/logo appeared, it may be too hard for some of the audience/viewers to read/see. This is limitation because the ident designers have to make the typography clear enough and easy to read The typography need to be easily readable for all ages of people with all different types of visual impairments. This limitation can affect the designers' creative ability. Typography is not just the the colour of the text, its also the font size and the font. Designers may have found a perfect font and the colour together but they couldn't use it due to the limitations. If the designers have 20/20 vision or better, they have better chance to know whether the typography can be easily read by audience members of all ages. It's important to have the right typography (font, size, colour etc.) because if they're not clear enough for the audience to see, there will be complaints and the audience can easily become annoyed and won't ever return to that TV channel. One of the reason they may complain is that they may be struggling to see/read the text that's being displayed on the screen. As I said before, designers may have found something perfect and more creative but due to the limitations, the designers must adjust it to the rules of making sure the typography is easily readable etc.
This ident (Channel 4) has no typography in it, not even a logo although you'll see objects form a Channel 4's logo. Usually a ident will tell the viewers what channel they are on if they didn't know what channel they're on however this ident doesn't. If there was new viewers to this channel and they don't know what channel they're on, they'll struggle to know and find it confusing as to them it may seems just a short clip of scrapyard and cars etc. As there's no voiceover, this make it even harder for the audience to know what channel they're watching, this ident is an example of a ident with bad typography.
Resolution
Resolution is the detail of the image; the more pixels there is, the better quality it is. But the lower the resolution is, the more blurry and pixelated it is, which is bad because it won't be nice for the audience to watch TV in grainy pixelated quality.The reason why it is an limitation for ident is because not every TV on the market has the same screen resolution so to make sure the idents cover the entire screen depending on the user settings of the TV, the ident designers will need to export each of the Idents in different resolutions otherwise it may affect the typography as it may be readable for the audience. The resolutions are split into four different categories with standard-definition TV (SDTV) up to ultra high-definition (UHDTV). These categories will help the ident designers with a range of resolutions they need to go by when the rendering process begins.
Rendering the idents in Ultra high definition is slightly a waste of time because most people nowadays have HD TVs which is up to 1080p and no further, only a few people in the world owns ultra high definition TVs. People with HDTV cannot view UHD idents because of their TVs is only high definition compatible and can't go further. So it is more of a time waster for the ident designers as they are most likely waiting hours for the idents to finish rendering in ultra high definition resolutions, it will most likely only be viewed very few times.
This BBC 2 ident is example of low resolution. Nowadays this would not be considered as good quality, you can see it's blurry and pixelated which is not nice to look at. This ident quality go up 240p which it's terrible compared to 720p and above (1080p, 4K and 8K).This quality would not have been considered bad quality back in the day because that what type of quality they had before 720p/1080p was standard. This ident also seems choppy which mean low frame rate (the higher the frame rate, the smoother the movement will be).
Aspect Ratio
Aspect Ratio is the ratio of the width to the height of an image or screen. There are three common ratio which are 4:3 (Standard TV/Old TV), 16:9 (HD TV) and 21:9 (Film). 16:9 is standard aspect ration as of today. A limitation of aspect ratio is that the idents will be displayed differently on different sized television screens, for example, most people have 16:9 aspect ratio as it's standard but if they had 4:3 screens, it will look different and maybe stretched or squashed which will alter the original design and it won't be normal/natural compared to the original. Ident designers must complete the given resolutions with the correct aspect ratio, if they don't render the idents in the correct/specific resolution and aspect ratio given, they may not have enough time to finish before the deadline date which is set by the client.
This is BBC 1's ident, you could see the aspect ratio was not right as the circle look like an oval, not circle. This effected the BBC brand/theme which is a circle. If the aspect ratio is not right nowadays, it won't be acceptable for TV and you'll have to crop the ident as it may effect people viewing it correctly. The designers will also have to consider all platforms aspect ratio such as phone, computer/PC, laptop, tablet etc.
