CTC, Russia’s second-largest broadcaster, has made some big moves in 2016 as it continues living up to its tagline as the country’s “Home of Entertainment” for both local and Hollywood fare.

CTC underwent a rebrand relatively recently, in 2014, which saw it heavily playing up its family programming with a bright, bubbly on-air identity full of bouncing fonts, and goofy objects such as bumper cars and disco balls. It was a fun look, but CTC’s expanding offerings two years later have dictated that “the channel branding had to become less cartoonish,” said CTC Art Director Vladislav Shvyrkov, “more relevant to the content, and rely on the current trends in design to be easily acceptable by the younger audience.”

Essentially, CTC needed to become more adult without leaving the young folk behind, and without losing its well-honed sense of humor. Argentinian design studio 2Veinte headed up production and creative direction on the project, and it struck that delicate balance by crafting “something simpler, fun, but at the same time stylish,” said 2Veinte Creative Director Pablo Gostanian. Presenting an array of concepts in their pitch to CTC, 2Veinte’s winning bid utilized 2D elements to preserve the previous brand’s “fun and craziness quota,” continued Gostanian, while the 3D elements and backgrounds added “a touch of sophistication” by moving “slow and in a stylish way.”

“When we originally received the CTC logo [for] the pitch, we instantly knew it needed to be contained within a shape,” Gostanian said. From that conceptual origin point, 2Veinte concocted a brand conceit that begins by encasing the logo in a circle, and stripping it of its former plates, shadows and other decorative flourishes, “leaving only the essence,” added Shvyrkov. What remains is “a powerful symbol of unity and infinity,” he continued.

Following a theme established by the logo’s circle, the new brand proceeds to quite literally revolve around the new mark. A series of channel idents created by Argentinian agency Vascolo, for instance, presents an array of differently styled motion graphics that are unified by a shared movement: “They wanted to make a system of IDs with the same kind of treatment but with different colors and shapes, everything moving around the CTC logo,” said Martin Schurmann, executive creative director at Vascolo. “It was a very simple idea, to work or to play with that circle, with that shape,” but at the same time “it was really challenging because the shape is really simple.”

Next to a straight line, the circle is about as basic as shapes get. To flesh it out into interesting animations and visual motifs, Vascolo used abstract elements to allude to real-world phenomena in the CTC idents without explicitly projecting it. In the sequence of idents above, for instance, Ident No.5 recalls the vibrating parts of a speaker system without actually showing a speaker. The objective, Schurrmann said, was to create “different moods that work as a whole system,” to present environments over objects, levels of atmosphere that could fit into different programming blocs. No.5 has the pulsing power of a music club, making it a good fit for night-time programming, while, say, a spot like the playful, toy-like Ident No.7 seems destined for a morning or early afternoon slot, when families and children are more likely to be watching CTC.

Meanwhile, 2Veinte worked closely with Shvyrkov in the company’s Argentina office to enhance the brand’s color palette and design a toolkit his in-house team could use to produce the full network graphics package, including on-air, off-air and digital elements. “The key elements of the brand remain unchanged,” Shvyrkov said. “The color yellow is still a key symbol of CTC, but we changed its proportion and it is no longer the one and only brand color. New hues include a “sleek and sophisticated gray accent color” as well as shades of mint green, purple and red.

“Russian TV channels are very aware of their image,” Valcarenghi said. “They have great aesthetic criteria and keep up with current trends… Vladislav Shvyrkov came to visit our studio in Buenos Aires, where he coordinated the project for a week. Being able to meet and work with him side by side was a very rewarding experience.”

CREDITS:

CTC

Chief Marketing Director of CTC Media: Ruben Oganesyan

Marketing Director of CTC Channel: Evgeniy Potapov

Creative Direction/Art-Director of CTC Channel: Vladislav Shvyrkov

Project Coordinator: Angelika Yashina

2VEINTE

Creative Direction: Pablo Gostanian

Executive Producer: Agustin Valcarenghi

Styleframes and Idea: Pablo Gostanian, Damian Sendin

Production companies: 2Veinte, Lumbre, Vascolo

Producer: Angeles Blasco

Music (Reel): Chilly Gonzales, Smothered Mate

VASCOLO

Executive Creative Director: Martin Schurmann

Animation Director: Ernesto Reyna

Art Director: Florencia Tasso

Design: Florencia Tasso, Micaela Podrzaj, Lionel Wainsztok

Animation: Ernesto Reyna, Lionel Wainsztok, Vicente Ziegler, Ulises Depaoli Shading, Lighting & Rendering: Lionel Wainsztok

Compositing & Postproduction: Ernesto Reyna, Lionel Wainsztok, Vicente Ziegler, Ulises Depaoli

Producer: Natalia Giuliano

Music and Sound FX: Rayuela Sonido

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