CBeebies Research

Since I immediately knew that I wanted to have 'The Discovery Channel' as one of the companies I make an ident for, that left one more from a choice of three other channels; CBeebies, Channel 4 and E4. CBeebies was definitely one that stood out to me, but I was pretty sure that I had NO first ideas for it, so I decided to look at the already existing idents for this channel already and also learn more about it the branding.

The channel was initially marketed towards pre-school children, but was then developed to up to 6 years olds and now children up to 12 watch the channel. However taking this into consideration, this then means that the animations themselves cannot be of such complexity that children can't understand them. This would defeat the purpose of having an ident for this channel. Even though idents are used to help with scheduling, they also need to set the tone and reflect what programmes are being shown on the channel. Therefore since it is targeted towards children, then you would assume that it is correct to have fun, vibrant and easily understandable animations than children can react to and understand.

                      

Looking at this particular ident from CBeebies, made in 2008, you can see just how much consideration that was required for this animation. Looking at the colour palette first, it uses the primary colours of blue and yellow, nothing complex, but something that is extremely child-friendly, and still appealing. There is also no use of complex shapes or characters, in fact there is no profound shape, they are more abstract, like 'blobs' that could easily humour a child. They have expressions which again add to the comedy fact, and most of the CBeebies idents follow these elements. Overall, I think they reflect what the channel represents, what it stands for and can offer to children. It also allows adults to see what their child is watching if they ever flick through the stations themselves. since these idents enforce a BRAND, this means that adults can automatically understand what channel their child is on, and provide instant relief that it is suitable for them.

The content of CBeebies is very different to the content of the BBC, which is great because the visual differences eliminate any confusion that could have possibly occurred between the two. A child wouldn't naturally be watching the BBC, therefore the ident for that channel then, would be more serious and have a very, very different tone to it.

In terms of how I would go about making an ident for CBeebies, I would definitely consider colour as a preliminary aspect. As well as not being too complex. Now that I know a lot more about the company, I think starting to develop ideas would be a lot easier, as well as considering what type of medium I would use also.