Which ITV company from 1955 to 2002, had the best logo?

Personally, I never bought the 'they had to put Tyne Tees on the bottom of the ident because it was 1996 and they had to' argument.

Firstly, by the time C3NE happened Central's production side had already been rebranded to Carlton whilst Meridian/Anglia programmes were carrying 'United Productions' endcaps, both without a peep from the ITC. Secondly, only a few years later (only about 18 months after C3NE was withdrawn actually), the ITC merely 'expressed regret' at the debranding of Central and Westcountry. I'm not aware of any policy change which meant that in 1996 you couldn't completely remove a station's original name but in 1999 you could.

The theory I've long had is that the original plan was for there to have been a single 'Channel 3' branding package for YTV and Tyne Tees, whilst 'Channel 3 North East '/ Channel 3 Yorkshire' would be used only for regional programming and regional trailers (similar to what eventually happened in October 2002).

When this was proposed, local management at both YTV and Tyne Tees protested, but Yorkshire being the stronger half of YTTTV were able to get the Channel 3 idea commuted back almost to non-existance whilst Tyne Tees had to settle with the much smaller concession of having 'Tyne Tees Television' hurriedly added to the bottom of the ident and the name remaining (albeit not the logo) on productions, along with some awkward namechecking in announcements ('This is Tyne Tees Television, broadcasting on Channel 3 in the North East' et al)

Being that there was very little embracement of Channel 3 on YTV, this then led to what was intended as the regional parts of the C3NE package being used full time on Tyne Tees.

I'm prepared to be educated by someone who actually knows what happened, but I think that's much more plausible than 'The ITC made them stick the name on the bottom'.

Oh, and despite what it stands for I still think C3NE was a pretty decent package (apart from the extra-long version of the ident where the 3 logo doesn't 'flash' at the right part of the jingle (which was also being used by Sky News at the same time), certainly better than the cold grey TTTV branding used from 92-96.

A very similar take on events from Transdiffusion

https://www.transdiffusion.org/2004/05/24/c3ne

You are right about that one. When taken as a still it results in an unwieldy image due to too much fine detail.



There could be truth in this. I'm wondering whether the decline in popularity of rainbow logos (for almost anything) since the 1990s is a result of the gay community 'stealing' the rainbow as their flag.



I always referred to it as a trident but the colloquial name for it was the Flower of the South.

The Big Centre logo was basically a nod to Central, wasn't it?



I think it's just that designs move on. Being able to print full colour was a novelty in the 90s and designers took full advantage of the new toys. Now overuse of colour just looks a bit naff.

Seems unlikely there'd be a connection, not only has the rainbow flag been around since the 70's but why would it's existence stop multi-colours being used for a TV logo.

As Steve says it's more a question of it just being out of fashion. Although of course NBC still have a multi-coloured logo

Throughout the 1970s there were still a lot of black and white sets in use, and most of the idents of the time were created with that in mind (a white or yellow logo on a blue background apparently looked quite nice on a 405 line black and white set).

By the early 80s they were getting ready to switch off the 405 signal and therefore they could be more ambitious with design. Being the first time they could use a whole spectrum of colour, some chose to do just that.

Try to engage brain before laying fingers on keyboard.

I don't know whether to laugh to cry.

I don't think it's logical to say that anyone/anything (the gay community, or otherwise) did/can "steal" the colour spectrum as an identifier. If , say, society has now generally come to inherently think that "rainbow = gay" (?), then that'd be "society's" doing rather "the gay community's" doing.

If just about nothing/nobody other than the gay community choose to use colour spectrum/rainbow identifiers anymore, then that'd be an aesthetic decision by everyone/everything else, rather than organisations feeling that either (A) they "can't" use it, because the gay community "own" it, or (B) they don't want to, e.g. because they don't want to be associated with homosexuals.

Taking the following into account...



...it's logical to assume that once the initial novelty of showing off the colour spectrum "just because we can" had worn off, broadcasters would have soon moved on in their design choices.

Design trends seemingly always work like that. In the late 1980s, you couldn't move for chunky, blocky silver/metallic CGI logos, when such computer animation was still very new (I'm looking at you, HTV West/BBC Wales Today/McCoy-era Doctor Who... etc etc).

Such bandwagon-jumping on to whatever it is that the latest technology suddenly enables one to do for the first time, tends to lead to a very fast entropy rate of "cutting edge" quickly turning into "dated".

Keeping things deliberately simple (such as the 1997-current [ B ][ B ][ C ] logo) is a far more advisable approach to design IMHO, as it tends to keep things fairly "timeless" and therefore able to endure.

The perception of colours by society is a very important factor for designers of graphic products.

The communists chose red as their colour and red is still strongly associated with communism in Britain - and several other countries - today. Red is also the most popular colour to symbolise a fast car.

Green is associated with the environmental movement worldwide but it's also the colour of Irish Nationalism.

In the business world blue is often perceived as a colour that means seriousness.

Pink has become the colour of the gay movement but they also regularly use a rainbow coloured flag. Pink is a very feminine colour in Britain - but not other countries - so it would be difficult to use as a prominent colour in any TV channel in Britain not aimed at a female audience apart from one for gays.

I have used both a rainbow of colours and a continuous spectrum of colours from red to purple in logos and artwork that I have designed myself which has a resulted in first hand experience of how society perceives them.

You've just thrown a new light on iPlayer and BBC Three...

iPlayer isn't a TV channel. BBC Three is close to crushed strawberry. It's not 'conventional' pink.