NBC promo, 1965

A Glossary of Television Terms

Fantastically-illustrated piece by John Alcorn under the art direction of the legendary Lou Dorfsman for CBS, 1964.



Click image for larger view

Candian Broadcasting Corporation

Canada's CBC's gorgeous kaleidoscopic animated on-air identity from 1982:



And their even more gorgeous "Super Concert" pixel universe intro animation, also from '82. Can I get a half-speed version so I can really take it all in?

As Seen Online: HBO on-air graphics

As a young buck who spent a lot of time watching television in the early 1980s, I was always fascinated with the HBO intro... you know... the camera flying over the city and the giant chrome letters rising up and then turning into a neon space station. I found a bunch of earlier renditions of HBO's station identification animations which are also worth checking out, so here they are:

1978, quick animation. very hot rainbow stripe logo:



Late 1980, total Great Space Coaster style:



Late 1981, art deco disco laser style:



The main attraction:



Can't forget the April Fool's edition:





and now, one of the freshest things I've ever seen on Youtube, a stunning behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the infamous 1983 HBO "city" intro. Hold onto your hats...

Mais Logos do TV Globo

In this blog's inaugural post, I showed some logos from Brazilian TV shows O Grito and Loco Motivas which sparked some interesting discussion in the Comments section about the country's exhausting overuse of '80s style graphics well after they had gone out of fashion in the rest of the world. So as the mid-1980s rolled in and we in America were stuck having to deal with lame TV logos like:







...the people of Brazil were treated to well-conceived and stylized typographic logos which actually helped build the identities of their TV programs.

While this trend didn't suit everyone, it's safe to say that the logos from TV Globo's programs from the 70s all the way through the mid 90s suit me just fine. Here are a few. Thanks to my dude Chad The Toy Baron for hipping me to these!



PS - "Vamp" was an early '90s soap opera about vampires. That logo is too good to be true.