How broadcaster Channel 4 depicted a nation in 25 idents
n 2023, Channel 4 launched a new version of its iconic idents. The commission from the channel’s in-house agency was part of a wider brand transformation, aligning the British broadcaster around the motto “Altogether Different”. Previous iterations of the idents have been directed by single auteurs such as Jonathan Glazer, Dougal Wilson and Brett Foraker. This time, the brief was fulfilled by a collective of agencies, artists, designers and technicians.
The result is a film that is, in-fact, a series of 25 films, each just eight seconds long and made by 17 different directors, all united by an ever-turning Channel 4 logo. The viewer is transported from a fox-infested phone box to the seaside; a logistics warehouse to an inner-city corner shop; an abstracted kitchen to a Zoroastrian living room. A piece of poetry, written and read by 2023 Wood Pencil-winner John Joseph Holt, unites these disparate elements.
“Previous iterations of the idents have been directed by auteurs such as Jonathan Glazer, Dougal Wilson and Brett Foraker. This time, the brief was fulfilled by a collective of agencies, artists, designers and technicians.”
The six Yellow and three Wood Pencils the film received at the 2024 D&AD Awards are a testimony not just to the strength of the final work, but the breadth of disciplines included. Among several other things, it is a feat of the craft of creative direction, and fittingly, this was shared by four overall creative directors – 4Creative’s Lynsey Atkin, Time Based Arts’ Mike Skrgatic and filmmakers Daniel Wolfe and Bafic.
“When we are awarding jobs in the most traditional sense, you’re looking for somebody who you think is articulating an idea in the most interesting and exciting way,” says Atkin, who commissioned the work. “But you're also casting people that have a shared sensibility and similar parameters in terms of taste. We very quickly established a shorthand and understanding… and I think you see that in the work. You see something which is a group of people who all believe in the same thing, and have a shared ambition.”