[Milkshake]

Lets head back in time... Way back at least 25 years back in time to a simpler time. Channel 4 is still battling with its presentation so decides to introduce a new look

However the original concept ever used on screen? As you can see, the ending of the ident has different layout.. plenty of squares.. they might come in handy later on

www.youtube.com 

www.youtube.com 

Its has been said this look was quickly dropped and they tried again later in the month, as you can see then ending had a different style, some of the idents never had the music.

www.youtube.com 

Does anyone actually know who was behide this look?


Mod note: Minor edit to casing in the title

[Brekkie]

Yes, the squares were used for about a week and think the break bumpers a bit longer. Never really understood why they were dropped - perhaps they felt the logo wasn't clear enough

[Larry the Loafer]

Wasn't there a suggestion having a circle in a square (sort of) was a bit too similar to Channel 5's logo at the time?

[Milkshake]

Odd thing is, there actually made a good number of these idents Somewhere between 15-20 of them, You have to wonder why they made so many for such a short space of time.

[James2001]

Because they likely weren't expecting them to be used for only a short amount of time.

Remember the BBC2 revamp in 2008 that literally lasted a single junction before being dropped? At least they lasted longer than that. Admittedly in that case it was just the existing idents with a different style logo on them, but still...

[Milkshake]

The trouble is 5months later the new idents come in with Spin, they started working on them just before this rebrand started. Infact with all the issues and disagreements over 1999 idents its possible they should have come in earlier.

[James2001]

I guess it's possible the 1999 rebrand wouldn't have happened if this had been successful.

[Brekkie]

IIRC the 1999 look was used in press promotion from the beginning of the year (with a big campaign around Queer as Folk) but it wasn't until April that it appeared on screen.

I know that 1998 look had a break bumper but did it expand to endcaps and ECPs too?

[James2001]

I don't recall Channel 4 having their logo on endcaps until the 1999 revamp.

Their logo did appear on the break captions on some shows in the 1995-99 era though, most notably Brookside and Hollyoaks.

[WillPS]

I don't recall Channel 4 having their logo on endcaps until the 1999 revamp.

I think this was often added as part of the ECP wasn't it? It'd transition from a now/next state to showing the logo over the endcap seemlessly...

When they introduced the new logo in 2006 they even had a version of the ECP designed to fit the same 1/3 screen area for older content (as well as the normal 1/2 screen one which they've stuck with since), although they didn't bother with that after a little while.