Thinking about Thames: even if I'm not a fan of what Carlton represented, I find that its graphics were way ahead of its times, particularly compared to the "stale" Thames ones (they had wonderful symbols, it's just that the graphics were too much.. 70s/80s)
Meh, I find the Central cake package a bit overrated.. it wasn't superbad don't get me wrong, but it just couldn't survive in the modern age
It was leagues ahead of most ITV regions though in the early 90s, with LWT probably the only one that came close. Agree the traditional black background version couldn't have survived much longer but they had updated it nicely with solid colour versions in the mid-90s, and also have perceptive style idents making up the logo a decade before C4 did - so had the logo survived I'm sure it would have evolved and adapted for the 21s century - even if had been ITV celebrities prancing about in front of a giant broken up version of it.
:-(
A former member
The black Background was pretty much gone with the september 1994 ( expect for a couple of the variations) While the 97 ones done seem to have a black background at all.
Yep, it's not fair to hold up branding of a TV station that essentially disappeared nearly two decades ago and compare it with modern day graphics, assuming the station's branding would've remained in aspic. That said, if it was still around, it'd still be more inspiring than much of the dull, safe stuff we've grown accustomed to today.
Regardless of the idents the 4 square motif across the presentation was probably the strongest identity ITV have had this century and that era gave us some nice generic idents and led in to what was a strong unified look for ITV News.
I think I agree with this too. I hated it all at the time because it essentially marked the end of ITV as a regional network (as opposed to a national station with some regional opt outs). The idents were annoying but the four squares was a pretty neat, if perhaps somewhat vague, identifier. Even the regional trailers with just the word 'Granada' underneath the squares somewhat worked. Anglia's website, not long after the change, had the four squares and the Anglia logo contained in the final yellow one as a header - the only effort I saw of combining the new network identity with the legacy regional idents. It didn't look bad either. The ITV News look was better than its predecessor too. The Channel Report version with their own music was arguably even better (at least for a regional programme) and it was a shame the regional versions didn't get their own music, the same way regional BBC News has different music from the national bulletins (albeit variations on the same sort of theme).
I've always thought that the unified ITV identity (and indeed the confederal ITV branding pre-October 2002) has always suffered from the lack of a symbol for a logo. Most of the US television networks have such a logo (CBS eye, NBC Peackock etc) that's been around for decades with little or any tweaking done to it over that time. The BBC has had its blocks since 1997 and even they were largely an update on what had gone before. In that time, ITV has used for different logos, all quite different from one another. The triangle from the 1989 logo was probably the closest ITV have ever gotten to such a symbol.
I would agree with that, I think they're fantastic. As you say, although they got rid of the Central and Westcountry brands, regionally they did quite a lot in terms of continuity. I mean, the Granada regions kept the local names but to what benefit? The continuity using it was appalling.
Yes, GMG North continuity was dreadful for the most part. They may as well have used the non-regional version of the ITV hearts. The Carlton-branded regions definitely had it better. Better idents but also much fresher continuity that at least name-checked the station. That being said, the removal of the Central & Westcountry branding was ultimately a waste of time, considering the Carlton brand was only seen in those two regions for little over three years. I've often though this was Carlton being overconfident of taking over the whole network eventually but maybe after walking away from the hearts branding during the development stage and all the difficulties encountered with designing something that worked, they thought it was just easier to design one set of idents for all three stations. Perhaps it was even Lambie-Nairn who made the recommendation.
Anglia's website, not long after the change, had the four squares and the Anglia logo contained in the final yellow one as a header - the only effort I saw of combining the new network identity with the legacy regional idents. It didn't look bad either.
No Anglia logo on those (from the start and end of 2003). The equivalent image pre-October 2002 doesn't show up on the archived site.
