ITV drop its 'heart' theme

ITV have announced they are dropping the 'TV from the heart' theme next year

I think it likely that the logo will stay particularly as it's used everywhere ITV1, ITV2, ITV Sport Channel, ITV Digital, ITV Select, ITV Active etc....

Yes, all ITV have said is that they dont think their 'TV from the heart of live' slogan and heart branding has worked well. Therefore a new branding solution is being developed, and the current ITV logo looks as though it will be kept.

I voted 'YES', but want to clarify that I don't fully agree with your phrasing of question. I don't like the heart theme, so want it dropped, but an live with the ITV logo.

I certainly think it's better than the 1989 version. Any thoughts that 'standardisation/an ITV generic logo should never have been introduced in the first place' IMHO are worthless. Whether you like standardisation or not, it's too far-gone to be EASILY reversed (what with ITV digital, ITV.com, ITV active etc......)

So yes, drop the hearts in favour of something else (hopefully better...... well, it couldn't be much worse), but I'm not desperate to see the ITV logo go.

The problem is that the hearts just don't bring about a memory of ITV.

In other words, you don't see the hearts everywhere you see the ITV blue box - they're not used together. Even in the idents they don't appear on screen at the same time...

Take the Carlton idents for example, anybody could as easily link ITV to stars as they could to hearts.

However I do think that the ITV blue box logo is working well now that ITV Sport Channel, ITV2 and ITV Digial are all generic. For once ITV are doing better than BSkyB who have at least 3 different typefaces for Sky all being used randomly!

Just my two cents,
Peter.

Well I'll be glad to see the back of them. There really boring up here in the north with only the lines idents. I do quite like the 'splash' break bumper but I'am not keen on the others.
Let's just hope there replaced by something better.

You are totally right, we are hardly benefiting from the hearts look, the sooner they ditch it, the better!

I voted for the 'heart' theme to be dropped, because I think it's time for a change.

I hope that whatever solution that ITV comes up with to replace the 'hearts' theme, that it works just as well on-screen as the current ident does, in regards to branding the channel, and allows the regions to keep their identities tied in as they do now.

Personally my current favourite ITV1 ident, based on the 'hearts' theme, is the variation used by Carlton/HTV.

Seeing the 'lines forming' hearts idents at nearly every programme junction on Anglia is getting very boring...  

(Edited by dominic maud at 11:52 am on Nov. 22, 2001)

Well, they have two being used for channels, and three being used in total. Anyway I don't really like the ITV logo so i'd be happy for them to change it.

I don't particularly like the standard hearts on ITV, however I like the Carlton hearts and think they should be used more across the network - especially HTV as it is owned by Carlton.

Well, I could say that the best way to have people remember your station is to have a series of announcers appear on-screen and develop local personality status, but no-one will listen so...

Generic ITV idents cannot work, for one very good technical reason. You can't make enough of them with high enough quality to brand the station well and provide enough variety.

The producers of the hearts idents ended up having to make over 3500 individual idents to cover all the variations and all the stations.

There is a much better idea. Make a small number of them, to a standardised formula, make a very strong 'main' ident for each station (ITV 1989 was a good example of this, 1999 'Lines' was just far too weak) and give the template for making the idents, in the form of a series of graphical templates that can be loaded into the regions' graphics computers, to the local franchises/broadcast centres (Leeds, Southampton etc) so they can expand and make their own to reflect their regions whilst still maintaining the brand. And don't just stop at the ones you've done, keep adding to them.

It's the only way any system is going to work in the long term. ITV's 1999 idents didn't work, not because they were badly designed or made, but because the entire way they went about them was wrong. My suggestion above would lead to a much better solution, and would potentially take the best attributes of say BBC2's or Central's (pre-1998) idents (the variety) with the best of UTV or SMG's (strong local imgery to identify with the viewers). No amount of flashy graphics is going to work long term if they don't make the procedure right -- we'll be in exactly the same sorry position 2 years from now!

All these channels, the greedy gits...and nobody watches them!

IMO I think the hearts should be jazzed up a little bit. I like the music that's played with them though.