[Stooky Bill]

You can see why some of those were rejected. Anglia's triangles are the wrong colours (yellow was on the inside of the A, not the outside). Granada's is missing the line linking the arrowhead to the G. Ulster's is unrecognisable. TVS's doesn't use it's symbol at all (which by then was part of the animation but not the final lockup), the graphic in the V is instead based on the bevelling effect from the letter S in the wordmark, which doesn't make a lot of sense.

To be honest, I lived in one of the more recognisable ones (Tyne Tees) and even here it took a while to realise that the local logo was contained in the triangle. Even when I saw YTV's one the TTTV one didn't immediately click - and I'm a pres nerd.

Yorkshires is odd, one of the few logos that fit perfectly in a triangle and they originally used only used half of the chevron.

TVS's too would have fitted too but as Jas84 says they'd stopped using it as a logo by then

[Ben Shatliff]

In fact, Granada must've assumed those generic idents were cancelled outright, considering that on the same day the generics launched they also launched a whole set of idents for Yorkshire which was relegated to local usage along with Tyne Tees's 1998 ident. There was also plans for a new Granada ident with a new logo, which was scrapped. I assume Tyne Tees's 2000 logo was part of those plans too - they didn't even update the generic package to use it, which frankly was inexcusable once they edited it to add the ITV1 logo in 2001.

Was that the purple ident which appeared after Regional Programmes maybe 2002 or later?

I often wondered how that would have been had the generic GMG then later ITV Idents not happened.

[VMPhil]

You can see why some of those were rejected. Anglia's triangles are the wrong colours (yellow was on the inside of the A, not the outside). Granada's is missing the line linking the arrowhead to the G. Ulster's is unrecognisable. TVS's doesn't use it's symbol at all (which by then was part of the animation but not the final lockup), the graphic in the V is instead based on the bevelling effect from the letter S in the wordmark, which doesn't make a lot of sense.

To be honest, I lived in one of the more recognisable ones (Tyne Tees) and even here it took a while to realise that the local logo was contained in the triangle. Even when I saw YTV's one the TTTV one didn't immediately click - and I'm a pres nerd.

You’d have thought after getting to three or four companies in, they’d have realised shoving each company logo into an upside down triangle was a design dead end

Tyne Tees is one of the oddest, the yellow bit looks like a lower case “T” at first

[G Honeybun]

You can see why some of those were rejected. Anglia's triangles are the wrong colours (yellow was on the inside of the A, not the outside). Granada's is missing the line linking the arrowhead to the G. Ulster's is unrecognisable. TVS's doesn't use it's symbol at all (which by then was part of the animation but not the final lockup), the graphic in the V is instead based on the bevelling effect from the letter S in the wordmark, which doesn't make a lot of sense.

To be honest, I lived in one of the more recognisable ones (Tyne Tees) and even here it took a while to realise that the local logo was contained in the triangle. Even when I saw YTV's one the TTTV one didn't immediately click - and I'm a pres nerd.

Haha me too. I lived in the HTV region and didn't realise it was the H from the aerial ident. I just thought it was a variant of the generic logo. 

It was only when I visited a mate in Reading who got LWT did it suddenly click! 

[Nini]

Just me who really liked them? Yeah, the abstraction was going to put off a lot of people in intent especially with that abstraction being only a small fraction of a larger logo during a time when regions were still very much independent though a part of a wider network. I see the intent of reducing the logos of each region down into something identifiable as a flag or pennant. Problem though was that it didn't take into consideration the logos and what they represented hence Anglia's having the eastward pointing yellow triangles now pointing westwards or Ulster's being too abstract though is based on their ident. Granada's I don't object to, it's still very identifiable but I guess that vertical bar was important.

You really needed to see the logo at the start to make sense of where it concludes though and the concept was a bit too heady for the market but as a piece of design, I thought they did a good job. They weren't intended as like-for-like representations of the logos but as a vexillological approach to their designs overall, a rationalising and distilment to be identifiable from a distance. Maybe someone just liked flags and striking geometric designs, can't say but I will say that even though it failed as an identity, it works for me as a strong brand.

[Spencer]

This discussion comes round every so often, and it seems to me most people have missed the point of what they were trying to achieve.

It seems clear to me that what they wanted was the ITV logo with a mere hint or flavour of the regional branding, not two full logos on screen competing with each other for attention. Hence why there isn’t a complete YTV chevron or HTV aerial in the triangle. 

I’ve seen the style described as ‘heraldic’, with the triangle similar to a pennant flag, using bold, simplified shapes and colours to represent the regions. 

Of course the one version which sticks out as different to all the others is Thames’ which is much more detailed and does feature pretty much their entire logo. I’d be prepared to bet though that this wasn’t what they were initially presented with, and this was revised after they rejected a simplified version similar to all the other regions.

[Nini]

That's what I've heard too hence my appreciation for what they managed with 13 companies all vying for proper representation on screen and not subordinate to the ITV logo. Ego killed it I reckon.

[JAS84]

The version shown there is indeed not what they were presented with, as the blue triangle logo didn't even appear until 1990. It originally had a different design, which they updated later.

[Stooky Bill]

Yes Thames changed their logo to be triangular shaped for its 21st birthday in 1989, a few months before the rebrand. Whether this was a co-incidence or they designed the logo knowing what was coming I don't know... I suspect the latter.

Then a year after the ITV rebrand they changed from the yellow triangular logo to a much simpler blue triangle and the Thames version of ITV logo changed to the one above

[Spencer]

Ah yes, of course this was the first version…



But it seems like an anomaly in that almost the entire logo is featured, unchanged other than squashed a bit, and it’s heavily detailed. Whilst it helps in terms of fit that it’s a triangle, so (pretty much) are YTV’s chevron and Scottish’s Bertie Bassett and yet Thames’ logo doesn’t get the ‘heraldic’ interpretation.

I could see them having initially presented Thames with just the blue waves (TVS style) or a corner of Tower Bridge in the triangle and had it rejected.