Dave | Peter Allinson

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.