(2b) Limitations of an Ident

Limitations

Typography

Typography is the aesthetics of an ident. In other words, how it looks in terms of font, colours, and size. Typography is a limitation because the logo has to be comprehensible otherwise the audience wouldn't know what they are watching. The typography also has to reflect the identity of the TV channel. The brightness must be balanced when using live footage or animations otherwise the on-screen visuals including the information would be incomprehensible meaning that the channel has failed to expose the channel's identity to the audience. In this BBC three ident, the logo is recognisable and all the colours are balanced meaning that the typography is successful in conveying the channel's identity. In addition, the brightness is balanced meaning that the audience can see the animation and aesthetics clearly.



Resolution

Resolution is also a limitation because when you zoom in on an ident, the audience can see each individual pixel. HD (1920x1080p) has become so dominant in idents that all the others are useless and undermined. Choosing the right resolution for the idents is also key. Ultra-high definition also known as 4k maybe crystal clear, but it reveals so much detail. So if an actress was in an ident wearing make-up such as mascara, the make-up would make no difference because creating an ultra-high definition ident would reveal the spots or freckles. Not everyone has expensive televisions so they are missing out on decent quality programming.




Colour

In an industry such as the BBC you would be working under a paid contract to produce an ident for their corporation and the colours your idents use have to be broadcast safe, meaning that the red green and blue thresholds have to be below 235 otherwise it will result in your Ident being returned to you to make those changes. There are some colours that cannot be broadcasted. For instance, the colour red because BBC have overused the colour red and when an audience sees another ident using the colour red then it will remind them of BBC one given that they overused that colour for years. In this example the colour which stands out the most is red and the colours have been balanced so that it doesn't distort the typography of the ident. Overall, colour is a limitation because the if the colours used in an ident are not broadcast safe, then the channel will end up with an oversaturated ident and the colours will also distort the audio which would lead to failure to expressing your brand identity to appeal to the target audience.



Size

The size of the ident and the logo is a limitation because it needs to have visibility to the audience and the logo needs to be correctly positioned and sized well enough so that the audience can view it on their tablets, computers, laptops and phones. In other words, the idents need to be resized to fit the screen resolution for portable devices. An example ident would be this TV3 ident. The size of the logo is huge but it doesn't cause any problems for viewers who own TV's with an aspect ratio of 16:9, but for viewers who can't keep up with technology lose the opportunity of experiencing high quality on-screen visuals. Size has now become a limitation because all the television channels compete with high definition 16:9 idents which is a predicament for viewers who are incapable of keeping up with technology.


Aspect Ratio

Aspect ratio is similar to the size of the screen. The reason as to why aspect ratio is a limitation towards producing and airing these idents is because not all viewers have TV's with an aspect ratio of 16:9 some may have lower like 4:3, this will force the ident maker to crop out the ident which would restrict the overall design of the ident. For instance, black bars which would make the ident look unprofessional. Trying to view and ident which hasn't been cropped out on a 4:3 screen would result in most of the ident being hidden and it will confuse the audience. For example this Ident has black bars on the sides meaning that the creativity is limited because not everything isn't being shown to the audience.