A B-Side BY Armin

Reel FX

Established in 1993 and formerly known as Radium/Reel FX, Reel FX is a visual effects, animation and entertainment studio with offices in Dallas, TX and Santa Monica, CA. They recently introduced a new logo, which isn’t anything earth-shattering or particularly notable but they have put together an amazing animation piece of their logo that is a must-watch. Here. And a behind the scenes story is here.

Thanks to Ben Williams for the tip.

Opinion BY Armin

TV Land Flips Out

Launched in 1996 and originally part of a Nickelodeon programming block called Nick at Nite, TV Land is a cable television channel aimed (according to owner MTV Networks) at the 40- to 50-year-old with a blend of original programming, classic and contemporary television series acquisitions, and movies. What originally started as a nostalgia-filled, black-and-white-tinted programming has grown into a Betty White-fueled feel-good programming. This month TV Land introduced a revised logo and a new on-air look both designed by Trollbäck + Company, who also designed their previous on-air package.

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Opinion BY Armin

More4 Flips Out

Launched in 2005 by British broadcaster Channel 4, More4 is a digital television channel popular for its range of documentaries, U.S. imports like The Daily Show, reruns from its parent company, and some original programming. Announced back in November and effective this week, More4 will start “focusing more fully on popular factual and features — life enhancing content, helping viewers to get the most out of their everyday lives.” In other words, downers like “documentaries, arts and current affairs” are out and “programming which offers insight and inspiration to the way they live, including homes, property, food, health and fashion” is in. The new identity and on-air look has been designed by London-based ManvsMachine.

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Opinion BY Armin

A New HP: So Close, Yet So Far Away

Established in 1939 by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, HP (shorthand for Hewlett Packard, just for the record) is, as it describes itself a “technology company” selling consumer products for printing (shipping more than 1 million printers a week!), personal computing (48 million units a year), and software, as well as offering IT infrastructure and other related services. Ranked 11 in the Fortune 500, HP counts with 324,600 employees across 170 countries and generated $127.2 billion in revenue in 2011. Clearly, HP is big but, also, it lacks that je ne sais quoi that transforms a massive company into a revered brand like, oh, I don’t know, Apple. With the help of Moving Brands, HP hopes to transform its perception and introduce a whole new way of portraying the company. Maybe.

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A B-Side BY Armin

ESPN College Basketball

Airing on ESPN, in one form or another, since its introduction in 1979, ESPN College Basketball is exactly what the name implies, growing ever more comprehensive and ambitious over the years. Troika, who also redesigned ESPN College Football, have designed a new logo and on-air package for ESPN around the them of Mayhem. Detail view of the logo and animation package below (or after the jump). A little more story here.

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A B-Side BY Armin

Audience Network

Launched in 1999 as the 101 Network and renamed Audience Network this past June, this DirecTV channel has original programming like Damages as well as the beloved, NBC-dumped, now done Friday Night Lights. The new logo and on-air look were designed by Trollbäck + Company. Montage of animation work here. Press release here [PDF].

Opinion BY Armin

Sportsnet Shoots and Misses

Launched in 1998, Sportsnet is the main sports multimedia platform in Canada, which includes six TV channels, two radio stations, a magazine, and a website. It has been owned by telecommunications giant, Rogers, since 2001. Sportsnet is the official broadcaster of the London 2012 Olympic Games. This week, it introduced a new logo and on-air look designed by Los Angeles, CA-based Troika.

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Opinion BY Armin

Portal On-Demand

Launched in 2006, BT Vision is an on-demand digital TV service available to broadband customers of BT, the London-based über telecommunications services company. BT Vision’s offerings are broken down by genre — Film, Music, TV, Kids, Sport, and others — and can be consumed through an unlimited package or at fifty pence (about US$0.80) a show. Despite having over 5.7 million broadband customers, only 575,000 are BT Vision subscribers. This past September, BT Vision introduced a new identity and on-air look designed by Proud Creative (identity) and ManvsMachine (on-air).

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Opinion BY Armin

Color me Colorful

Established in 1993, Telstra is Australia’s largest telecommunications company, providing mobile, home phone, internet, and cable services, employing more than 39,000 people around the world. As some of our tipsters have noted, Telstra is the Australian equivalent of AT&T. Yesterday, Telstra unveiled a new identity designed by the Sydney office of Interbrand.

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Opinion BY Armin

GNT: Bouncier and Blurrier

Originally launched in 1991 as a news network, GNT: Globosat News Television is part of the 34-channel line-up of the Brazilian television network Globosat. Two reinventions later, the channel dropped the meaning of its acronym, going solely with GNT and changing its scope to cater to a female audience since 2003, showing original programming as well as American imports like The Oprah Winfrey Show, Weeds, Nigella, and Late Show with David Letterman. Back in March — sorry for the delay — GNT revised its logo and introduced a new on-air identity designed in-house.

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Follow-Up BY Armin

Follow-Up: EDP

One of the elements of the identity redesign of EDP, covered last week, that I missed to address was an animation that played on EDP’s home page, which at the time struck me as quite fetching and smoothly done but still populated by the same icons that I wasn’t too complimentary of. The animation was done by Brand New School, and they squeeze the best traits of the EDP identity to create a fun animation, which you can see below (or after the jump).

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Follow-Up BY Armin

Follow-Up: Travel Channel

Television identity follow-up Friday continues. In March we reported on the new logo for the Travel Channel. At the time the applications of the logo were limited and there was no information about the redesign. New York-based loyalkaspar was in charge of the whole package, from the logo to the custom hand-drawn typeface to the on-air look. Some stills available here and you can see the motion work here.

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Follow-Up BY Armin

Follow-Up: Science Channel

In April we reported on the new logo for Discovery’s Science channel, nicknamed Morph and sporting some killer animations. Well, the animations just got killer-er as Imaginary Forces (IF), in a project led by director Ronnie Koff, has taken on the on-air look for Science creating themed promos, network IDs, and logo bugs (almost literally). Based on the logo, designed in-house by Discovery Communications, IF was tasked with capturing “its personality and maintain a sense of surprise,” as well as “creating an authentic, emotional set of characters for the network. To make it unexpected, unique and systematic at the same time.”

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Opinion BY Armin

Current Lets its Bold Flag Fly

Launched in 2005 by former Vice President Al Gore (before An Inconvenient Truth fame) and entrepreneur Joel Hyatt, Current TV was originally a pretty drastic model of programming, featuring user-generated “pods” reflecting a broad range of topics and opinions that lasted anywhere from 3 to 10 minutes. You could tune in at any time of day and just jump right in into whatever was going on and not have to worry about following typically scheduled programming. This was the same year YouTube launched and before it went as big as it is now, so the concept was fairly ahead of the curve. Current gathered some initial attention but then it just kind of disappeared as the novelty wore off and despite hiring former MTV Networks’ President Mark Rosenthal, toying with the idea of going public, and transitioning into 30- and 60-minute programming Current felt anything but. Enter Keith Olbermann, the love-him-or-hate-him, ex-ESPN anchor turned political commentator. In February Current announced that Olbermann would be taking his show, Countdown With Keith Olbermann, from MSNBC to their cable channel starting June 20. Reminiscent of when Howard Stern announced he would be leaving the broader air waves for SiriusXM, Olbermann’s move to Current gave it instant relevance. Last week, Current quietly introduced a new look, launched the website for Olbermann’s show, Countdown, and over the Summer will be implementing the new look. The identity has been designed by Wolff Olins with motion assistance by Ghava, the on-air look is by loyalkaspar, and web design by Code and Theory.

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Opinion BY Armin

Funny Smile

Known mostly for its solid roster of sitcom reruns and old-ish comedy movies TBS has grown into a cable television force to contend with: It’s home to Conan, it has attracted original programming from powerhouse entertainer Tyler Perry, and, well, you will find Groundhog Day showing just at the right time when your brain needs some Bill Murray. Since 2004 TBS has been using its “smile” logo and this month it has introduced a complete new on-air look, designed by Los Angeles-based Ferroconcrete, that revitalizes the channel, bringing the smile literally to life.

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A B-Side BY Armin

Root Sports

Root Sports, a subsidiary of DirecTV Sports, is the new name that will take over three regional sports channels in Seattle (formerly FSN Northwest), Denver (formerly FSN Rocky Mountain), and Pittsburgh (formerly FSN Pittsburgh). Troika has designed the identity and on-air package. All work can be seen at their website.

Opinion BY Armin

Meet Morph

Part of Discovery Communications’ menagerie of TV properties, launched in 1999 as Discovery Science, renamed Science Channel in 2003, this little corner of cable universe, featuring, as you might have guessed, science-y programming is reinventing itself a third time: simply as SCIENCE. All uppercase, please. Facing stiff competition from the more popular Syfy, SCIENCE certainly needed some kind of boost to make it more relevant and while new programming like Ricky Gervais’ An Idiot Abroad or reruns of cult classics like Firefly are helping, this new identity certainly demands attention — specially its new logo, nicknamed Morph. The new identity will be implemented on air starting June 8.

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Opinion BY Armin

MIT Media Lab, Full of Squares

Founded in 1985 by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Professor Nicholas Negroponte and former MIT President Jerome Wiesner in an I.M. Pei-designed building, the MIT Media Lab is one of the world’s most renown research and development centers. Funded by corporate sponsorship, the Media Lab counted with a $26 million budget in 2009 – 10 and served 138 graduate students and 28 faculty and principal investigators. “Unconstrained by traditional disciplines, Lab designers, engineers, artists, and scientists work atelier-style in close to 30 research groups conducting more than 400 projects that range from neuroengineering, to how children learn, to developing the city car of the future.” Inspired by the facility’s expansion in 2010, which “manifests the spirit of transparency, mutual inspiration and collaboration” this new logo designed in collaboration by E Roon Kang and TheGreenEyl was recently introduced.

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Opinion BY Armin

With a Great Tagline Comes Great Responsibility

Launched in 1994, the Independent Film Channel (IFC) has grown remarkably from a weird little runt of a channel that was a spin-off from Bravo (before Bravo was all Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Housewives of…, and Top This or That — into one of the most progressive and rewarding cable channels through original programming (Portlandia), fantastic re-runs (Freaks and Geeks), and movies where the endings aren’t always happy. Today the IFC universe consists of the cable channel, a feature film production company, a distributor of independent and foreign films, and a theater in New York City. For the better part of 2010, IFC has been using a new logo and tagline created by Portland, OR-based Feel Good Anyway and they recently put up a great case study of their ongoing project with IFC.

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Opinion BY Armin

Viva gets Sharper

First aired in 1993, Viva is a music and entertainment channel on German television — with programming that ranges from Friends to America’s Next Top Model to Jackass to its own Top 10, Top 50, and Top 100 videos. Originally owned privately, Viva was purchased by MTV Europe in 2004 and since 2000 the channel has been exported to Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Poland, and the UK. In January Viva launched a new on-air package and identity developed by the internal creative team of MTV Networks Germany.

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