Tweens research

Well I haven't really blogged since returning to college, so here is my first year 2 blog-post! the brief is "visual candy" and we have to create an ident for a fictional tv channel that is 20 seconds long and meets all the criteria as set out in the brief.

Of the 5 channel choices, I am drawn to the pre-teens kids channel "custard" which requires a chaotic, energetic and visually dynamic channel ident to display between shows etc and to identify the channel with.

The brief also involves making a new logo for the channel, I cannot look at previous examples as this is a fictional station, however I have looked at some logo's for some other childrens TV shows such as:

Cbeebies is a channel from the BBC that is aimed at pre-schoolers, under 5's. It shows puppet based shows that revolve around song and dance, numbers and colors, ie: tweenies, teletubbies, night garden etc.

CBBC is the regular CBBC channel that is aimed at 6-9 year olds or there abouts, content is more vocational and looks at the environment, cooking, arts and crafts, gadget shows, animals and generally more documentary styled programs.

The cartoon network is aimed at children aged around 8-12 but rather than being educational or documentary themed it is totally random cartoons that are often gross out humor, ie: Ed, Edd and Eddie, Rem & Stimpy, ben 10 etc.

I would say alot of teens and even adults like to watch these shows!

This is the old Nickelodeon logo (above)

and other variations below, this channel shows alot more live shows such as i carly and the troop, their are some CGI based shows, (Jimmy neutron) and traditional cell shaded stuff like spongebob, fairly odd parents, fosters home for imaginary friends etc.

more variations on the logo used for the channel and some for marketing, print, etc.

There is also a Nick Junior channel aimed at younger viewers and a Nicktoons channel which is purely cartoons, wheras Nick Junior looks at pre-school entertainment such as arts and crafts, puppet based shows, music and dance etc similar to Cbeebies.

There is also Jetix, a channel which to me seems to be aimed at boys who are probably aged between 6-11 or in other words "tweens" as all their shows are definitely "boy" orientated, ie: batman, iron man, dennis the menace, storm hawks, galactik football etc.

There is the Disney Channel which is aimed at a variety of age groups, they have sections for boys, girls, teens, pre-schoolers with playhouse disney which shows winnie the pooh, mickey mouse etc and the tween aimed channels air stuff like hannah montana, high school musical etc. which are basically updated versions of grease, mandy comics, etc.

There is also the Discovery kids channel which focusses on animal shows, documentary's, history programs etc. It's basically an encyclopedia put into media rich TV shows for kids!

I was thinking of these information type shows aimed at tweens in line with the custard brief, and I immediately thought of shows such as Art attack, that cooking game show hosted by leslie something? was it called splat? shows about construction and deconstruction, that's the kind of stuff that they like at that age so my initial idea was to look at making an Ident that focussed on actually making custard in a cut down compact little film that would end with the word custard being formed from the ingredients, so that could be the kids making the custard and taking it out of the oven to find it was made in the shape of the word or it could simply be moulds made to hold the ingredients separately, each as a different letter.

The only problem I had with this was that it would have a home-made budget feel to it, and I don't feel that this will work for the brief, most Children's TV channels use graphics for Idents and logos, (see above) this allows them to be clear, concise and clean cut whilst at the same time being colorful and chaotic adding movement and sound to grab attention and add dynamism.

Another thing I noted whilst looking into these brands is that their identities are very STRONG and clear on what they are, each one is instantly recognizable and they each stand out from each other and are very different in relation to adult TV logos and graphics.

The other problem I have with this brief is that the name Custard relates to Cbeebies, Milkshake and that kind of thing so anyone would instantly assume that it is a pre-school channel rather than a station for older children to watch, so will my cute characters appeal to this demographic? They appeal to me as an adult, and I'm sure what with brands such as Tokidoki and harajuku lovers being very popular now with young adults and teens alike that this look will be appealing, I just need to make sure the overall execution works and them I'm sure it will be ok as there will be the construction/making elements involved and a little bit of quirky fun and jokey violence thrown in which our youtube/facebook generation of kids will definitely appreciate.

Pet Society is a very popular facebook game based on the also popular and somewhat revolutionary in it's time "animal crossing" game for the nintendo gamecube, although it is an over 13 years based chat site, the game also appeals to younger players, there are also similar games available for the DS for children in the tween age group that are similar in gameplay to this and so I feel that if they like this sort of thing that my storyboard can work.