Happy Chinese New Year! Okay, maybe I’m a few days late but enjoy this lovingly crafted little ident celebrating the very special year of the dragon from my friends over at MTV Asia.

Just In: Channel 4 digital stablemate, More4, has rebranded. The new look, announced late last year, debuts today and includes a series of new idents and a brand new OSP, reflecting what C4 chief David Abraham calls the next phase of “creative renewal” for the channel.

With a refocus on a new range of programming, the look “has been refreshed to communicate a warm, approachable feel that reflects the channel content“. The rebrand was led by ManvsMachine and Channel 4′s in-house agency 4Creative.

More4 2012 Rebrand

More4 2012 Rebrand

More4 2012 Rebrand

Click keep reading for a look at the behind the scenes/making of video…

Happy New Year my friends.

And with it comes my yearly roundup (in no particular order) of the top 30 channel branding campaigns from 2011. From some well considered refreshes from HBO, Discovery, and MTV, to name changers (Velocity & Science), and a few behind the scenes glimpses from Eurosport, RTÉ, and Channel 5, 2011 was another glorious year of showing why design for the small screen was anything but.

If you like this list, or simply missed previous years, you can find 2010 here, and 2009 here. And as always, whether you are channel or agency-side- do get in touch if you want to talk shop.

Wishing you and yours a prosperous, healthy, and happy 2012.

Denny

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Read full article: “Eurosport’s Emotional New Brand Identity“

Read full article: “HBO 2011 Redesign”

Read full article: “Discovery Channel (US) Brings New Energy to On-Air Identity“

Read full article: “UK Channel 4′s T4 Refreshes with Dancing Robots“

Read full article: “MTV Europe Unveils Fantastical  Rebrand for VIVA“

Click continue reading for the full 2011 list

Read full article: “Behind the Scenes Look at Channel 5′s 2011 Rebrand“

Discovery’s Science Channel Rebrands as Science

ARTE’s Ambitious Kaleidoscopic Rebrand

Nat Geo Refreshes On-Air with New Idents

Brazil’s GNT Rebrands, Launches New Campaign “With You”

Discovery Channel (UK) 2011 Refresh

Australia’s ABC2 Gets Vibrant New Look for 2011 (Goes pink and lime green!)

Discovery Rebrands HD Theatre to Velocity- a new channel for upscale men

Discovery HD World Unleashes Fire, Wind, and Water in 2011 Idents

Italian Channel La7 Launches New Identity

2011 Chiller Idents “Painfully Good”

PBS (UK) 2011 Launch Package

24hr Russian News Channel Kommersant Breaks Convention with Launch Identity

Chello Rebrands Premium Movie Channel Film1

Canal+ Unveils Double Rebrand

An In-House Agency Look at TRTE’s Teen Strand Rebrand

Nickelodeon Latin America Unveils New 2011 Idents

New Zealand’s Newest Premium Channel Soho Launches With New Identity

BBC Two Refreshes 2011 Christmas Identity

China’s CCTV Unveils Newest Channel Brand

India’s Star Launches New Campaigns for Key HD Channels

Australia’s FOXTEL Brings New On-Demand Idents to Life

World, “Say He11o” to Eleven

What a Wonderful World: BBC One

BBC Entertainment Unveils New Brand Identity

Blood, stars, trees and a little holiday spirit from Fox International Channel’s Fox Crime via Studio Ronda and Fox Creative Director Luca Rochira. Christmas never looked so creepy.

BBC Two has revealed a new seasonal brand identity building around an immersive Christmas world. The initial brief & challenge was to “signify everything that is wonderful about BBC Two: bold creativity, imagination, wit, substance and pleasure. To celebrate the more magical, inspired and unexpected side of Christmas.”

BBC Two Christmas (2011) (click for full)

The solution? The creation of a Two world by Red Bee Media: “The Inspiring Land of Two. This is a place where Two’s bold creativity comes to life in magical ways, inspired by genres of BBC Two content.” Special thanks to Red Bee’s Director, Creative Andy Bryant for this one.

The power of a simple idea and one beautiful world. And of course, the national treasure that is David Attenborough.

*Update 15 Dec. Apologies for those attempting to view the BBC video link from outside the UK. New vimeo link for US viewers to come.

Described colorfully in press as “America’s BBC”, PBS launched just a few weeks ago in the UK to largely positive reviews and a hope to appeal to British viewers with notable strength in news and documentaries.

PBS UK

PBS UK’s on-air package was supported by the brand promise: “Epic True Stories”, which aim was to showcase the breadth of content to be featured on the new channel across its four key programming genres: history, science, current affairs and arts/entertainment as well as reinforce the scale and quality of programming.

PBS UK General Manager, Richard Kingsbury, shares a bit about the target audience, “Our viewers already watch terrestrial factual programming on the BBC and Channel 4. They probably enjoy BBC4 and factual programming on More4 … But they think they haven’t got a channel they feel is completely for them. It will be all the programmes in one place, all the time.”

PBS UK

For those interested, I did an article 2 years ago on the PBS rebrand “Be More”- you can find that here.

Just in. Fox International Channels has unveiled a new look for Fox Life. The female-skewed channel brand operates in a number of territories including Italy, Portugal, Japan, Latin America, and the Netherlands and offers a lineup of drama, reality, comedy, lifestyle and documentaries, including Grey’s, Desperate Housewives, and Bones.

The comprehensive package of over 200 elements of new live action idents, photographic off-air elements, and other bits of on-air furniture was developed by Eloisa Iturbe in conjunction with Fox’s in-house creative agency. I’ve a large handful of new idents but have included the tidy montage above.

Fox Life 2011 Rebrand

Fox Life 2011 Rebrand

Fox Life 2011 Rebrand

Fox Life 2011 Rebrand

Fox Life 2011 Rebrand

Fox Life 2011 Rebrand

Fox Life 2011 Rebrand

Some notable news from Australia/New Zealand, as NZ’s newest premium channel, SoHo, has launched. The channel has unveiled a comprehensive new brand identity and a boasts programming lineup that includes Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, Dexter, True Blood, The Killing, and Luck. The channel name was selected after extensive research and exploration, and reflects the “premium nature of the content, and tipping a hat to the American location of its many shows”, with the new SoHo mark taking hero position in all comms. The creative was developed by Sydney-based Tactic.

SoHo 2011 Launch Package

Today we go East to find China’s CCTV unveiling a refresh of its 15th Chinese channel, CCTV Documentary. Launched back in January 2011, CCTV was looking to reinterpret its voice and visual identity with a bold new series of image spots, reflecting the essence of the new channel and an expansion into the North American and European markets.

The 3 new image spots developed by Taiwan based JL Design, titled “Everything is You”, “Love”, and “Life” came from a concept brief where the proposition “culture through the ages” was core.

CCTV Documentary 2011

CCTV Documentary 2011