History of ITV

ITV was launched in 1955 and it had many different regional

channels but no overall brand.

1980s branding
Up until 1989, all of the ITV franchises had individual logos and
idents. These individual logos and identities were created by the
franchise for their own use and identification within the network. A
generic, blocky-looking logo was used infrequently throughout the
1980s, often in a rainbow colouration for promos produced by the
"Big 5" franchises (Thames, LWT, Granada, Yorkshire and Central),
as well as holding slides used by some of the regions and Channel 4
(for cross-promotion purposes), but it was never used as the
centerpiece of an identity, and was replaced by the next logo.

A new ITV logo was introduced on 1 September 1989 and

accompanied a national on-air identity designed by English Markell
Pockett with music by Lord David Dundas. The logo was the centre
of a whole branding package; there was a national logo and regional
logos for all of the ITV franchises. Each franchise had a distinctive
portion of their logo included into the V of the ITV logo. The ident
was generally formed by beginning with the franchisee's logo, then
going into a sliding sequence featuring a dove, a couple in period
dress, Big Ben, an athlete, and a pair of dancers before the regional
ITV logo is formed. Along with this, each franchise received a
regional clock, trailer style, network font and break bumpers.

October 1998 October 2002

On 5 October 1998, the ITV logo was changed to a lower cased blue
and yellow affair. This was in line with the fact that, with the upper
cased ITV logo used previously, the viewer perception of ITV was a
highs brow stuffy channel, not aimed at younger audiences. ITV
changed the logo to seem friendlier and more welcoming to younger
audiences.

On 8 November 1999, the next generic look was born, designed by

English and Pockett with music by Lord David Dundas, both of whom
were involved with the last look. The main theme of the look was
the ITV slogan of 'TV from the heart'. There were three variations of
the ident.

An opening film that incorporated a heart shape at the end, before

transferring to a spinning hearts background with the region name,
with ITV logo below it with their logo in a small box above the name.
The name, logo and ITV logo form from lines coming across from the
sides of the screen over the spinning hearts background.
The name, logo and ITV logo fully formed on a spinning hearts
background.

October 2002 October 2004

On Monday 28 October 2002, a new idents package was rolled out

across the regions using the central theme of a celebrity posing
'backstage'. There would be a clip of the celebrity chilling-out when
they were supposedly off screen. The 'ITV1' logo had been softened
with smoother edges by this point and it would animate on in the
bottom right hand corner, being formed from 3 aligned blue blocks
and one yellow block. This package also coincided with the
centralisation of continuity from the English, Isle of Man and Scottish
Border regions to London. As a result of this, regional idents were
always pre recorded by a national team of six recorded from the
Carlton/LWT continuity booth. Wales retained its own announcers for
the time being.

November 2004 January 2006

The 1 November 2004 heralded a new on-air look coinciding with
the launch of ITV3. The ITV1 logo was reworked, splitting it into
separate squares. On-screen, the boxes were arranged as a large
yellow square containing the '1' with blue ITV boxes on top. This
logo would be seen against a generic background of a blue sky with
clouds, windows of a high rise building, underwater with fish
swimming by and dark blue ribbons flowing against a blue
background.
The plans for these Idents were to use them as mini-menus showing
what is coming up soon. The Idents would zoom to the left allowing
a short video and description of the upcoming programmes to be

shown, before the panels of the videos to become part of the ITV1
logo in the centre of the screen. They were not designed to be
traditional idents, however despite the fact that ITV took on a team
of associate producers to produce these promotions, the
promotional idents were used less and less as the months go on.

November 2006 January 2013

The next presentation of ITV1 was launched on 13 November 2006,

just 10 months after the last new look. Following the issues with the
previous one, the themes were changed slightly: the logo remained
the same shape and style, but with the letters itv changed to black
so as to contrast with the yellow of the logo better this had also saw
the end of regional idents for the ITV plc owned stations and as of
this day the regional names was now used for regional news only
and then in 14 January 2013 Channel Television had suffered the
loss of regional identy and the regional to the news instead.
The ident films themselves were scrapped and a new set created
following the theme of "Alive with Colour" with ITV promoting the
new idents as the "second phase" of the look introduced in January.
[4] The idents, based on the previous set by Red Bee Media, were
designed by The Mill and produced by Blink Productions and Pleix
include surreal scenes featuring yellow colours to the same audio
track.
The look launched with six idents: 'Beach', 'Bike', 'Lake', 'Market',
'Basketball' and 'Pavement Art', with another 4 added on 3
September 2007 which runs in tandem with the previous ones.
These latest idents included an ITV1 logo that was bigger than the
ones launched in 2006, but retained the same soundtrack. In April
2010, ITV1 HD was launched, featuring an updated glossier logo
based on that of ITV1. In response, ITV1 changed their logo to the
glossier version and launched another four idents. These latest
idents have been noticeably different from their predecessors: the
logo was once again larger and faded on in parts. They also featured
individual soundtracks based on those previously and the style of
the ident themselves, namely the shooting of them, was very
different from those before them. They were accompanied on screen
by updated programme promotions, end credit promotions, stings
and break bumpers.
Refer to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ITV_television_idents

2013 present
The new itv logo has been modernised so now it is multicouloured
and curly letters instead of the bold font they used. They have tried
to make it look like the four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and
winter.