So to begin the actual research into effective network branding, I took a look at Denny Tu's blog "Art & Business of Motion" in which he provides an impressive and extensive list of work and great examples of network branding from across the world.
Quite a few of these examples really caught my eye, and a few of them honestly left me breathless and wanting more. To start off, we have the fresh brand identity for the Universal Channel. The channel features a line-up of character-driven drama, comedy shows and movies, and caters to an audience of greatly varying age, social standing, and family situations. The rebrand is an attempt at building upon the "brand equity and heritage" of its parent company Universal.
I LOVE the use of color, music, technical / scientific treatment of the animated graphics, and mixed use of animation and live action which I feel culminate into a truly beautiful and well designed rebrand. The way the logo is brought on and off screen is well designed and entertaining, and they use a variety of techniques and treatments, but each one resembles the last on a core level. The use of shape is brilliant and they get across a very organic and natural feel while still having a very technical and clean cut tone as well. How they manage that is wonderful and very original.
Another exquisite package that I saw was the rebrand for Eden, the UKTV documentary channel that features shows like Superstorm, Ganges, Tribe, and Wild China, as well as top rated series like Planet Earth and Blue Planet. They are an almost purely nature and planetary based channel, highlighting features about the earth, the environment and the varying animals that inhabit it for an audience that is interested in the planet without the people. The idents reflect this so well, with a very natural color palette and minimalistic imagery that pushes the idea of very limited human interaction and influence.
The lineups don't feature any text, simply a woman's voice as an announcer, which perfectly resembles the tone and style of the rest of the pieces, lacking any real text and remaining rather minimalistic. Simply brilliant the way I look at it.
Both packages do an excellent job of remaining clear and consistent, maintaining continuity between their separate elements. Their use of sound, text (or lack there of), imagery and color help build a brand that is all their own and fits the audience that they are trying to reach.
I feel that the two examples are similar in very little ways, that they are both in fact very different from each other, only connecting on the level of great design and a very effective combination of live action and animation. The differences between them are vast, from color to the style of animation, these two examples cater to a very different crowd I feel, and that is reflected in their style. Eden is much more organic and natural whereas the Universal network brand features very harsh colors and technical movements and relies heavily on computer graphics. Eden lacks this, remaining minimalistic and simple, a large difference between them.
When designing the identity for the ART Network, I feel that these examples, including all of the ones I didn't highlight, will definitely play a substantial role and hold a good amount of influence on my work. I plan to incorporate a mixture of live action and animation very similar to these two networks, while maintaing a more organic (hopefully) and fluid feel to cater more to the artistic and free nature of the Ringling audience.
Denny Tu's blog (http://dennytu.wordpress.com/) has provided the perfect base to jump from in starting this project, with a huge sample of work. All of these examples have served only to fuel my desire to delve into production for the ART idents, and I really can't wait to start. My ultimate goal is to produce something that's on par with everything featured on denny's blog.
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