I always thought the 1989 generic one was better, because it showed what ITV were about, eg drama, entertainment, documentries, and it's definitely interesting to note now how the ITV companies showed it.
1989 Generic - if only for the excellent music. ITV had definitely the best ident of all four UK terrestrials at the time (BBC1 had the boring COW globe, BBC2 had 'T W O', and C4 had been using the same ident for 8 years, classic though it may be!).
The music was so popular, Grampian were still using it until 18 months ago! Other companies (Border, Tyne Tees, LWT) also kept the music for their next ident after they dropped the corporate look and ITV itself recycled it for the National Weather until 1997.
All the variations of ITV 1989 (even the eight or so 'unseen' variations) are on the ITV Corporate Look website, which I think Asa has a link to, not sure?
Yes, I preferred the 1989 generic ident, it was very good because it allowed ITV to have a strong national identity, but also incorporated regional identity into it. For instance, the ident would start with the regional companies logo, then turn into I T V, of which the 'V' would incorporate a part of the regional logo. It was very clever, and 'dual branding' at it's best.
:-(
A former member
Whilst I certainly preferred the 1989 ITV corporate image, I believe it was the regional branding included in it that was very much the _worst_ part of it! (Sorry Square Eyes).
None of the regional variations really bore much resemblance to the idents they were supposed to emulate. Look at Central's for probably the worst version. At least Yorkshire had the sense to replace their original one with one incorporating the whole chevron -- unfortunately the proportions of the V went all to cock and looked just as bad.
No, if they had stayed with just the blue triangle in the V with (note!) the _three_ lines, it would have looked much better! (Along with the ITV Sport and Children's ITV idents).
For the record -- I've hated the lower-case 'itv' logo from day one. It was dated when it was introduced and it looks even worse now. Drop it for something better -- and don't let English Pocket (or whatever they're called) near it ever again!