[ccateni]

Original versions of the ITV Heart Idents (A very well covered story from the world of pres, though the last one is just an unused endboard)
www.youtube.com 

I always though the final idents were better as a promotional tool for trailers and not idents.

[ccateni]

… and generic. The original pointed G symbol was so recognisable, to change it would have been daft. Even today, it’s a design classic and still looks good and could have been easily altered to have a variant that worked well on mobile.

This seemingly is more like a prototype pitch to see how the look would play out, then the standard logo would be brought in.
Graphic Designers love to use temp logos to test the waters before finalizing it with the previous logo or a new logo designed later on. Considering the hearts rebrand, I don't think this got very far before it was scraped, hence the generic logo.

[JAS84]

Yeah, I think they were going to rebrand one by one. Yorkshire's idents were finished, and launched alongside the hearts but only used for local shows. Tyne Tees's package launched a year later (local shows until then used the old ident) - but didn't match the hearts idents which weren't updated. Granada's was scrapped and they used the hearts even for local shows.

[Ashley]

Yeah, I think they were going to rebrand one by one. Yorkshire's idents were finished, and launched alongside the hearts but only used for local shows. Tyne Tees's package launched a year later (local shows until then used the old ident) - but didn't match the hearts idents which weren't updated. Granada's was scrapped and they used the hearts even for local shows.

But I do wonder if all GMG regions were to have Yorkshire style idents. The background animations were certainly made but only used on local programme trailers (LWT included, but with red, white and blue squares), and the the 1999 Christmas idents for the GMG North stations were a similar layout.

[bilky asko]

With recent discussions about rebranding E4, here's an abandoned design of the channel done by The Designers Republic, featuring quite a lot of pluses:



In their own words:

The first phase concept Channel 4 encouraged us to develop from our initial ideas was based on the idea of 'entertainment +', which we expressed in terms of Orwellian Double Plus Good (nineteen E4).

It was conceived as a universal, visually and conceptually-recognisable device abstracted from and building into an ownable identity around a constructed E4 logo.

Should this become the main symbol, most of us would probably be moaning at incorporating the E into the 4 (and to be fair, the earlier concepts in doing so looks more suitable for American affiliates), and might perceived the upcoming relaunch more positively, but who knows? It's certainly a bold and weird design.

That might have worked better as a launch idea for a channel unconnected to a parent. Throwing away the entirety of the previous strong brand would have been foolish.

[Humphrey Hacker]

… and generic. The original pointed G symbol was so recognisable, to change it would have been daft. Even today, it’s a design classic and still looks good and could have been easily altered to have a variant that worked well on mobile.

This seemingly is more like a prototype pitch to see how the look would play out, then the standard logo would be brought in.
Graphic Designers love to use temp logos to test the waters before finalizing it with the previous logo or a new logo designed later on. Considering the hearts rebrand, I don't think this got very far before it was scraped, hence the generic logo.

I'm glad it was a prototype.

[orange]

The Designer’s Republic launch brand concept for E4 is such a great find. TDR is very close to my heart and I absolutely adore their work - it’s all delightfully insane and experimental. There’s some more concepts that weren’t posted here that I think definitely will have influenced the final product by Rudd.



The style of most of their work is peak 00’s Y2K futurism and very sort of Fifth Element weirdness (which is my neck of the woods in design) - I just love the fact they’ve shown their concepts to begin with and random bits and pieces where they’ve just played around and experimented with it. All of this late 90’s-early 00’s sort of style is coming back into fashion now so I really do hope I get to see stuff like this again popping up around the place.

[thomalex]

Did they have anything to do with the Film 4 logo before the current one, the one with the skinny 4?

Some of this reminds me of it. Especially the E4 cinema logo.

[orange]

I don’t think so - think that may have been a 4Creative creation.

It’s a shame TDR seemingly weren’t used again by 4. I think their design languages could’ve harmonised quite a bit back then - though judging by the description of the E4 concept, they might’ve not had the best relationship…

[rick]

Something a bit Ulster TV about that logo...