February 1, 2016
New Channel 4 identity by GMD alumnus Neville Brody.
Neville Brody, a student of GMD in the 80’s has just designed the new Channel 4 brand along with director Jonathan Glazer. Neville created two new bespoke typefaces for the channel – Horseferry and Chadwick – which are used for display and information text respectively. The new designs are used on on-screen graphics including stings, menus and programme titles, as well as off-screen posters and other collateral. The redesigned graphics are accompanied with newly commissioned ident music from Micachu and the Shapes’ Mica Levi, who worked with Jonathan Glazer on his film Under the Skin.
“Most TV branding these days is like watching wallpaper. It’s pleasant but gets boring very quickly,” say 4Creative heads Chris Bovill and John Allison. “We started with the original, iconic Lambie Nairn 4 logo and broke it down into its constituent parts; the nine blocks. The blocks represent Channel 4’s incredibly diverse qualities. The blocks are free to demonstrate our remit; to be irreverent, innovative, alternative and challenging. They are free to flow through everything on the channel: our typeface, on-screen menus, on-screen graphics, off-air logo, Channel 4 News, Channel 4 Racing, all the way through to the idents.”