Our task was to refresh the UKTV Play brand to create a design language that feels modern and compelling; drawing you into a brilliant mix of TV as unique as you are. Because no-one is just one thing. We’re all a unique combination of things.
We may not be the biggest or the glitziest, but we’re chock full of damn good TV that people will love.
Our current UKTV Play logo was not originally created with digital in mind, and didn’t work well at smaller sizes, so we were tasked to develop a new digital-first logo for UKTV Play.
With the inevitable shift towards more digital-based lifestyles and smaller screen sizes, we want to future proof our brand with a digital-first approach. A scalable logo that works effectively at various app sizes and optimised across all platforms and devices.
UKTV Play is the free on demand TV service for channel brands including Dave, Drama, Yesterday and W, so we also needed to create a design system that allows our new branding to work as an aggregated service for our partner channel brands.
Our new logo forms a circular device – a digital ring – that gives us the ability to unite our brands like never before. Embracing our channel brands as well as any potential brand partnerships in the future.
We have also introduced a new contemporary typeface full of character; a brilliant mix of colours; and a collection of animations and sounds that encapsulate our friendly tone and playful spirit.
All of which come together to offer a brilliant mix, just like you.
Over 130 playful icons were drawn and animated to be used across various product interfaces and various external communications.
New branded on screen packaging (OSP) was developed to play out across our entire network and push towards new content or highlight shows that are trending on UKTV Play.
A launch campaign and series of on-air promos were created to show the new branding and celebrate all the ‘different yous’
Dave is a very different place to where we were 5 years ago, so UKTV Creative were tasked with the challenge of creating a fresh new look and feel. We collaborated with Output, a London based brand and design agency, to evolve the Dave brand to better reflect the content we are putting out today.
We worked closely with Output to define a new set of brand tools to keep our content fresh, today, and in years to come. Tools that will help us to showcase our new products and exciting new commissions. Along with comprehensive guidelines to keep the brand constant and ‘distinctly Dave’.
The Dave brand is well-know and well recognised, and people know what to expect from us. The question is how will this show up on our channels, and in the wider world, but also appeal to a more diverse and younger audience?
We wanted to take the Dave tone-of-voice – the smart, comic, conversational brand that we’ve seen on our social channels, in partnerships and of course in our shows – and apply it to the biggest canvas of all – Everyday Life.
We wanted to put Dave into the world of our viewers. Out there- where we resonate most and shine best as a brand. We wanted to offer a fresh fix of funny in Everyday Life
A brand that subverts, prods, pokes and plays with the world around them and what they experience everyday. Here to help you laugh at the ridiculousness of real life.
To evolve the Dave brand, we needed a design system that was fit for purpose and helped to opened up a new ‘world’ of Dave. From podcasts to digital to social. A design that can flex and dial up or down for different needs, partnerships and campaigns.
So, to freshen things up we created a whole new suite of branded assets – starting with an evolution of the Dave logo.
We retained the brand equity and recognition of the original logo but evolve it with a simple build, housing it in a container, so it now acts as a window into Everyday Life.
We also introduced a set of photographic textures that will be used as backgrounds, which elevate the OSP beyond a flat graphical look. Lending the entire brand ecosystem a rich, relatable, contemporary, real-world feel. These backgrounds are deployed to add texture, colour and an extra conceptual layer to our assets.
They can also be used to emphasise genre, day-part, seasonality or special events throughout the year.
We also wanted to retain Dave’s strong impactful use of black and white, but have now introduced a secondary set of vibrant colours taken from the modern world.
A new typeface family is introduced, comprising a variety of weights and styles which give us a wide range of different ways to converse with our audience. Type is expressive and tonally varied like a real voice. We can build expression into everything we say, dealing up and down for different effect.
To allow for more flexibility across our brand executions, we have introduced a series of lozenge shapes that enable us to contain type and messaging – as well a way of framing footage and imagery.
This design system can be used freely, allowing for more variety and flexibility across our on-air, off-air and social media templates. It also helps to create visual consistency across the brand, ensuring everything always feels distinctly Dave.
In line with the overarching territory, the on screen branding mimics recognisable, everyday life behaviours in a smart and witty way. Logos animate and behave in surprising ways. Programme menus pop-up like message notifications. Photographic backgrounds are used to bring wit and context to our shows. Making everything feel humorously familiar.
Our channel idents also give us an opportunity to play in Everyday Life.
Dave becomes the ghost in machine, the gremlin in the works, popping up wherever you are, to offer a fresh, funny perspective on whatever is going on.
Our idents will become a bank of updatable real-world videos, which can act as backdrops for continuity, logo stings, or canvasses for contextual humour. This allows us to keep updating them with new copy and content, keeping them fresh and new for years to come.
All of this comes together to create a fresh new brand for Dave that helps us all to laugh through the messiness of everyday life.
Hatch exists to solve the digital skills gap and drive positive social change. Connecting aspiring IT professionals with employers seeking the digital skills most in-demand.
I helped to brand Hatch with a fresh new brand and a suite of branded assets.
This included a new logo that represents the future of digital recruitment. With branded assets that include a new font and colour palette that embody a professional, but human brand.
We wanted to develop a brand that felt human and approachable. That pushed away from what you typically expect to see from a digital recruitment business.
An egg shape is a regular motif that runs through the branding. It is used as a confident full stop, but also hidden within the counter of some letterforms.
Hatch doesn’t believe in CVs. They believe in uncovering potential. And matching people with the opportunities that empower them to fulfil their potential. Because whilst experience doesn’t always guarantee skill, the reverse is just as true. We collated a full collection of branded imagery that feel natural and authentic. Showing the human-side behind this digital recruitment business.
Through innovation, Hatch is breaking down barriers into the technology industry, unlocking value in diverse, undiscovered talent, fast-tracking their development for high-demand digital skills, and placing their graduates into exciting new careers across their network. We wanted to create a fresh tone of voice that uses copywriting with humour and relevance around developing talent for the digital world.
Society’s constant exposure to technology today means that talent exists where it’s least expected.
Hatch offer the market an alternative model for success that’s more innovative, more inclusive and more effective than traditional training and recruitment methods. It’s this model that enables them to find talent in the people and places where nobody else is thinking to look.
Developing talent for the digital world.
“Talent develops in quiet places. Our challenge is to find it.”
I helped to lead the process of sharpening W’s positioning and refreshing its on-air identity.
The resulting suite of assets embody a down-to-earth and unfiltered feel, that celebrate W’s inspiring programming and real-life moments in all their imperfect and unique glory.
Our logo is a bold W letter-mark, using a suite of brand colours, led by our primary brand colour of burnt sienna.
The rectangle is purposely off-set to create something that’s distinctive, unique and imperfect.
The logo works on its own – but was also developed to be used as a stencil or a framing device to fully embrace our mantra of ‘Life Unfiltered’, allowing us to show imagery and footage behind our logo as a window into real life.
Creating a simple, unfiltered way of celebrating our content, as well as celebrating real life in all its glory.
Imagery is at the forefront of our brand and should always reflect real life in a diverse, genuine, and authentic way. Candid moments that feel unfiltered rather than staged.
A warm new colour palette that is colourful and vibrant.
A new font family called Heading now which comes in a large variety of weights and type styles to further establish a brand that feels diverse and unique.
And finally, throughout our branded assets we have used real world textures – such as paper, paint and natural wall textures that feel tactile and real.
We aim to fully embrace our mantra of ‘Life Unfiltered’, by creating a set of idents based around our brand promise of ‘Genuine Human Moments’.
We collaborated with a content sourcing agency, to help us find a series of user-generated clips and home videos that capture genuine human moments.
These idents offer authentic moments that celebrate the ups and downs and showcase the diversity of real life in all its glory. We have incorporated key channel themes, including parenthood, home improvements, cooking, relationships, emergency services and health and well-being.
During this process we also worked with an award-winning music composer to create a bespoke melody for the W Channel. Often referred to as sonic branding, this piece of audio is effortlessly incorporated into a set of five bespoke music tracks that are used across our channel assets.
Our on-screen packaging demonstrates how we have implemented our brand assets to create a new look and feel and establish a bold new brand identity.
Our launch campaign included a number of TV commercials & marketing material to help build awareness of our new brand across TV, social media & out of home.
This kicked off with a teaser campaign letting people know that W was going to be Free on TV.
A Channel 4 and HBO Max production from the mind behind Queer as Folk, Cucumber, and Banana, It’s a Sin is Russell T Davies’ take on the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and will tell the story of three friends who move to London as the HIV/AIDS epidemic unfolds.
I was approached by Russell and the production team to help them create a logo design for the show and a simple title card to be used at the start of each episode.
Russell asks ‘What is IT’S A SIN? It’s provocative. It’s a statement. It’s in the 80s. It’s a black and white t-shirt.”
In the 80s, slogan T-shirts reached saturation point because of one woman: Katharine Hamnett. Dressed in a “58% Don’t Want Pershing” T-shirt, she was photographed shaking hands with the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher at a Downing Street reception for London fashion week designers in 1984.
Hamnett’s style appeared all over the world. Wham! wore a T-shirt with the slogan “Number One” – and later “Choose Life”; Frankie Goes to Hollywood had “Frankie Says Relax”. Hamnett’s T-shirts became cultural signposts to the times we lived in.
This iconic style helped us to develop a logo for the show, seen below.
We experimented with a few different animation styles – before opting for a very simple title card.
Animation Test 01: Screen Printed This has a layered, screen printed quality to it. Building up layers of ink and words to form our fully formed title. This is a bold statement. It’s provocative. A headline / news article worth talking about.
Animation Test 02: Fabric This is proudly flying the flag. Pushing back against the establishment. Wearing the t-shirt and making a stand. It’s tapping into the mood and the culture of the 80’s; this an iconic Katherine Hamnet style statement.
Final Title Card:
Both heart-warming and heart-breaking in equal measure, It’s a Sin will cover the entire decade, and will follow the protagonists’ friendships and love lives as they deal with the AIDS crisis.
2 x Drum Design Awards Best Moving Imagery Design / Best Photography
Motion Design Awards Video of the day
We produced the opening title sequence for the thrilling drama series We Hunt Together.A UKTV Original production in collaboration with BBC Studios.
We Hunt Together tells of two couples in a provocative new take on the cat-and-mouse thriller. The killers are hunting their victims: the detectives are hunting the killers and the streets are their hunting ground. Love and murder interlocked in a dance to the death. We Hunt Together is different. It’s a complex and well-crafted character-led thriller. It’s contemporary and unique in style. It’s modern, thought-provoking and edgy. The opening titles needed to encompass these themes and invite the viewer into this dangerous, beautiful, multi layered London.
The title sequence is set in a world of glowing neon where predators hunt together in the shadows. A tale of complex characters and the vibrant, violent world they inhabit. There’s a heightened reality to this world, which we see through our characters eyes. A fantastical setting of glowing colour and neon light.
Predatory animals form the alter egos of our four main protagonists, creating a face-off between predators. As one pair runs, another pursues. These fierce predators appear without warning, much like the bursts of violence that happen throughout the show, catching you off-guard, making you feel unsettled and uncomfortable.
Buzzing street lights flicker and neon lights burst to create hidden messages of the violence and danger that is ever-present.
To create the neon-lit London we commissioned bespoke photography that captures London locations that are specific to the show in order to maximise the look and create something unique.
To achieve this we collaborated with Eugene Tumusiime, a new and upcoming Photographer, Art Director, and self-confessed Nightcrawler, who specialises in transforming London at night into vibrant neon.
The images and colour palette express that off kilter under belly setting – that North London Noir – to create a distinctive look with a kinetic energy to seduce the viewer.
The track by a band She Drew the Gun, which is ironically called Paradise, establishes the sense of danger, and otherness about our world and our characters.
This is a place you don’t usually go or see on television.
When we launched our new company purpose – I was tasked with finding a way of bringing it to life within our office.
We have some fantastic spaces in our office, but at the centre of all is an impressive central sweeping staircase. A beautiful concrete structure that connects both floors at UKTV.
This was the perfect canvas to create a mural that represents our company purpose and that celebrates our people and culture.
We wanted to cover both sides of the sweeping staircase – as well as a curved upper section measuring an epic 18m.
During this whole process I only had one artist in mind.
Vic Lee.
Vic is an award winning artist, illustrator and visual storyteller and thankfully he was up for the challenge.
Working closely with stakeholders we compiled a list of content that would feature within the mural. Words and images that celebrate our creative culture and inclusive workplace.
We also included a few little surprises within the mural as a nod to the rich history of UKTV and BBC Studios.
Due to the logistics of the project it was agreed that the upper inner staircase would be a printed vinyl, installed professionally – and the two sides would be hand painted in the office by Vic.
At UKTV we aim to create TV with personality. With content that is crafted by fans, for fans.
‘Craft’ is at the heart of everything we do, and these hand-drawn murals are the very definition of that.
It’s not everyday you get the opportunity to totally transform a space…
Promax Europe GOLD Best Integrated Marketing Campaign
The Drum OOH Award Best use of Copy/Copywriting
CreativePool Award Best Out of Home
The Drum Design Award Best Writing for Design
On Alibi, there’s always more going on than meets the eye.
Our objective was to improve brand perceptions of Alibi among crime drama viewers.
To do this we wanted to bring to life our tagline of ‘more than meets the eye’ by creating the joy and excitement of discovering hidden phrases.
Our campaign used clever copywriting to challenge viewers by revealing hidden messages across digital screens throughout the UK.
Our brand campaign went live across multiple digital screens during a nationwide campaign.
Animated screens revealed hidden messages across the country – prompting people with a curious mind to take a second look; bringing to life our tagline of ‘more than meets the eye’.
To promote the Alibi channel’s new brand proposition of ‘more than meets the eye’, we wanted to engage with the curiously-minded fans of crime drama by creating a real world experience that offers something unexpected and challenges their perspectives.
Using the optical illusion of anamorphic type, we developed a large installation that can only be seen and deciphered from a certain point and perspective. This installation will be seen across the UK from Manchester to London.
This installation allows people to engage and interact with our brand and was created as part of a wider campaign to show that on Alibi there is always more going on than meets the eye.
An on-air promo was also broadcast as part of the brand campaign. Using our new and exclusive content to encapsulate our brand message of ‘more than meets the eye’.
To support pride month we worked closely with the team at Stonewall to create a series of TV commercials and sponsorship idents that were played out during our network air-time across UKTV.
This campaign aims to raise awareness of the incredible individuals that make up the LGBTQ+ community and continue to champion acceptance without exception.
We were fortunate enough to work directly with Sir Ian Mckellen, a Stonewall ambassador who has spent years fighting for equality at home, at school, at work and in the streets.
So who better to voice our message of acceptance without exception, than Sir Ian himself!
Taking Stonewalls brand assets of bright colours, vibrant portraits and punchy typography – we created a typographically driven campaign that communicates our message with bold activism and unapologetic pride.
Working with Stonewall to serve their community better and bring people together to accomplish the organisation’s important work.
At UKTV, we developed a new Purpose and Mission Statement which sets us apart in the industry.
We believe in TV with personality.
As we begin to face in to a new world and a new way of working, UKTV have established their Purpose – to bring programmes that are hand-picked for their quality and available on any device – all crafted by fans, for fans. TV with personality.
This video tells that story through animation that is creatively striking and visually captivating – with an element of hand-made craft.
