I’ve just started work on a redesign project for a newsletter which at the moment follows a rather traditional broadsheet design (A2 folded). The logo for the newsletter was designed in 2001/2 and has served very well since that time, but I’m starting to wonder whether its days are numbered. The logo deliberately harks back to the days of movie news, particularly the much loved RKO radio picture logo.
Current news logo for the BW News
The new brief for the redesign is a smaller format (A4), more colour, more magazine-like and 21st century opposed to the more traditional inky newsprint image it has now, so it may have to go or over go a makeover. The RKO logo is an iconic piece of design and has itself undergone several revisions in its time.
Those of you over the age of 30, with a liking for watching black and white movies on television will probably have something like this floating through your head, accompanied by Morse code dots and dashes which spell out “an RKO radio picture”:
RKO Radio Picture Logo Circa 1929-1957
This is what you see before watching such films as King Kong (1933), Suspicion (1941) and Citizen Kane (1941). Orson Welles liked the ident for the sound as much as the image:
“My favorite among the old logos, not just because it was so often a reliable portent…. [I]t reminds us to listen.”
– Orson Welles (Thompson (1997), p. 170.)
In 1994 the logo was revised, adding colour, but it is rarely seen now, which is a shame. Peter Jackson used it as seen at the beginning of his King Kong (2005) remake, and surely a deliberate nod to the original.
RKO Radio Picture Logo Circa 1994
In this digital age, RKO’s website has a flash intro that has come full circle in design terms. The flashing radio mast is still there but this time it glows and pulses rather than transmits. The movement is still the comforting quarter revolution of the earth with a zoom but the focus has shifted from the earth to the mast and we zoom in much closer than previous versions. From this pulsing glow the new RKO text emerges incorporating the lightning bolt to the sound of the Morse code.
RKO website intro ident 2009
RKO text logo circa 2009
Web 2.0 stylised RKO logo from their website
Below are some links various RKO video idents and an excellent essay by Rick Mitchell:
Related links
