Ident Blog - Design/Purpose/Intent (with subject terminology)

Design

There are a few codes and conventions of how to typically make an effective ident but the design of the ident really depends on the target audience. Typically, an ident will be brightly coloured, It needs to be bright and bold to be eye catching and memorable. It will also have a simple piece of video or animation, this is used to make the ident interesting but to not go as far as distracting you from what it is identifying. It will also feature a piece of text (company name) or logo that has usually been animated, this is so it is instantly recognisable.  

Companies usually stick to certain colours too, again to make them recognisable. BBC 1 use Red, BBC 3 use Pink, ITV 1 use Yellow and ITV 2 use green. This is simple but effective way to quickly identify the brand.

For young children, idents will be very bright and colourfull and feature an animated character they are familiar with. They are usually on a simple plain white background, again making it eye catching. For example, this still of an ident from nickelodeon who use a brightly coloured text on a white back ground to make it stand out. They have a few other animations in the back ground but nothing too distracting.

This ident would be made using a variety of after effects tools. They would first start with making each component (the background, foreground, grass images and text) in different layers so they could be easily edited individually and put together to make one 3 dimensional video. In this video the text bounces in from the right to the centre, this would be made using key frame at the start and the end and change its path using position throughout the video. The text would also be flipped and changed to a very low opacity with a shadow effect to give the text a show and make it look more 3D. 

For young adults, idents usually use humor as a device for it to be memorable, they follow the typical conventions of being simple and eye catching but are comical to gain your attention.

For older people, idents may use something they connect with or have a memory of, for example using the back drop of a familiar location, typically a beach.

Purpose

The main purpose of the ident is to sell. This means they must identify their purpose and be memorable. Companies often stick to one format to make them easily recognisable on a first glance. For example the BBC often use circles, any time you see an ident with a circular motion, you know it’s the BBC. The circular format is a way to display that the the BBC is a global company, mirroring with the shape of the world.

This video would of been made through filming various motion picture videos and editing them together. They would have filmed the sky back ground and edited the colours to give it the right look. They would of then filmed the hills in the foreground and edited them together in after effects using layers. The red kites would probably have been created by filming one kite and repeating it several times to make it look like there was more then one, they would have changed the size and colours of some of them to make them look individual. In this video the kites spin clockwise, to make this they would of set frames and start and end of the video and changed the position and rotation throughout the video. They would of then put the text and logo over the top in a new layer to create the ident.

Intent

Channels and companies etc need to keep up to date so their intent needs to be fresh and change frequently. Most companies follow their format for around 5 years then re design it to keep the audience interested. Channel 4 went from having a very basic ident, with their channel 4 logo animated on a simple white background or sometimes and blue/green background.

 To having more interesting, motion picture ident where places or object create the shape of the 4. These are very creative and eye catching which keeps the viewer wanting to see more. The ident also features an iconic place the audience may be familiar with so that it works in synergy to remind the viewer of the company by seeing a place or vice versa.

One of the newer indents features a street in japan making the 4 sign out of bright sign lights and another one features a city in dubai making the 4 sign out of sky scrapers, both of which the locations are commonly known for.

This first ident would be made again by using a lot of layers, they would of filmed a motion picture bad ground of a tracking shot through the city. They would of then created various shape boxes and added pictures of existing signs to them, the would of taken 360 degree pictures so they could edit the picturs onto each side of the shape to ensure they look 3D. They would then edit these together by putting each box in a new layer changing the position to create the 4 sign. In this video the camera tracks slowly through the city so the new layers would be edited by creating key frames and the start and end of the video and changing the size and position of the shapes throughout the video.