London Weekend Television
Written and Compiled by Matt Williams and Kris Starring
1st Logo
(1968)
Logo: On a black screen, the words "From London Weekend Television" zoom in from the center.
FX: The zooming in.
Cheesy Factor: The zooming in looks like someone is moving it onto the screen.
Music: A rather electronic tune ending with a "pinball noise".
Availability: Not widely seen in America.
Scare Factor: High, the moog synthesizer and choppy zoom effect will get on nerves.
2nd Logo
(1969-1971)
Logo: On a yellow background, 3 rows of stripes form, the middle white, and the ones to the sides of it a darker brownish color. They then rotate around, revealing that it is a circle with an outline of stripes, and "From London Weekend" in the center.
B/W Variant: This logo originated in black and white, with the brownish stripes dark gray and the background a light gray.
FX: The rotating.
Cheesy Factor: Surprisingly none, this is a clean animation.
Music: A rather highbrow piece with three bongs at the end (in the b&w logo, there are only two.)
Availability: Not widely seen in America.
Scare Factor: None, this is a clean logo.
3rd Logo
(1971-1978)
Nickname: "River"
Logo: On a black background, a row of orange, white, and blue stripes moves onto the screen. They swerve at strategic points, resembling a connected "LW", with the W connected to the L by the bottom of the letter. Above it, the words "London Weekend" appear.
FX: The appearance of the stripes.
Cheesy Factor: Rather rough animation.
Music: A xylophone scale that climaxes in a full orchestra.
Availability: Not widely seen in America.
Scare Factor: High, the rough animation combined with the jingle can rattle nerves.
4th Logo
(1978-1985)
Nickname: "River 2"
Logo: The same as logo 3, but near the end of the animation, the "LW" disconnects and morphs into the letters "LWT", each made up of the same stripe pattern. Below it, "London Weekend Television" appears.
FX: The appearance of the stripes and the morphing effect.
Cheesy Factor: Slightly smoother but still rough.
Music: The same as above, only slightly redone so that the end is a bit more majestic.
Availability: Again, usually only seen in Britain.
Scare Factor: Median, still rough but the jingle and animation are mellower.
5th Logo
(1982-1986)
Nickname: "Your Weekend ITV"
Logo: On a black background, we see red, white, and blue 3D stripes coming from the top and bottom of the screen. We rotate around to find that the stripes are the diagonal lines going through the "W" in LWT, elongated and stretching far from the logo. The lines all condense and go in to place as the LWT rotates to face us, and a sphere with a design somewhat similar to the 80's New World logo on it rotates into view. The sphere and LWT stop and the words "Your Weekend ITV" (ITV being in the form of the 80's ITV print logo) rotate around coming from the left, "orbiting" the sphere, and stop at the bottom left corner of the screen.
FX: Great early 3D CGI from LWT! Has to tie with the TSW logo for the best logo of 1982.
Cheesy Factor: The cheesy, "futuristic" synth music does not go with this logo.
Music: Starts out with a futuristic computer-like synth sound, which culminates into an 80's techno jingle, and ends in a deep synth bass.
Availability: Extinct, and only seen in Britain. LWT used it as an alternative to the "River" ident for introducing shows out-of-vision (such as ITN news breaks) and as a break bumper in the early 80's.
Scare Factor: Median, the dark nature of the logo combined with the synth music may cause some scares.
6th Logo
(1986-1989)
Nickname: "Blinds"
Logo: On a gray background, the stripes on the letters "LWT" slowly rotate into view, forming the letters in the process. The letters are formed one by one. The orange stripes are now clearly red. A shadow forms when the logo is completely formed.
Variant: For local programs, the entire picture rotates like a pair of venetian blinds to pictures of the letters separately on the gray background, then to a picture of all the letters together.
FX: The rotating in of the stripes.
Cheesy Factor: None, great CGI that holds up even today. LWT was by now famous for good logos.
Music: A triumphant synthesized theme.
Availability: Seen mainly in Britain-ITV abolished pre-show idents like this in 1988 so logos would become even scarcer from this point on.
Scare Factor: Low, this is an excellent logo.
7th Logo
(1989-1991)
Nickname: "ITV Generic"
Logo: On a black background a "river" of colors is seen. Below it is "LONDON WEEKEND TELEVISION" in italics and over the river is the LWT logo. The LWT logo wavers and fades, as one-by-one images of ITV programs appear. One by one in the river, the letters "ITV" appear. The "V" is cut in half and a triangle appears where the other half should be. In the triangle are stripes in the LWT colors of Red, White, and Blue. The river fades out.
FX: The "River" and the ghost-like appearances of the images.
Cheesy Factor: The wavering of the LWT looks rather fake but everything else is clean.
Music: A rather airy synthesized theme that culminates in a French horn. Composed by David Dundas as an ITV jingle.
Availability: Now Extinct, was only used as a channel id-this was actually a generic ITV logo modified by the network to feature the LWT logo and the stripes. Many ITV companies like Thames used a variation of this logo.
Scare Factor: Low, this is a clean logo.
8th Logo
(1991-1996)
Logo: On a black background, red white and blue cubes appear. They then move towards each other, forming a CGI "LWT" logo. Behind it, several streaks in red, white, and blue appear. Below the logo sometimes, "ITV" will appear like in logo 6 but with a blue triangle with lines cut out of it.
FX: The cube effects.
Cheesy Factor: Nothing cheesy.
Music: A variation of the David Dundas theme.
Availability: Again, now extinct.
Scare Factor: Low, a clean logo, and a warm-up for the next logo LWT used :)
9th Logo
(1996-1999)
Logo: On a black background, a "star" of cubes appears, in the LWT colors. The cubes then zoom away from the star-like shape and then group together to form a new LWT logo, now redesigned, with the stripes now cut out of the letters and the LWT being a solid red, white, and blue respectively. The logo is on a background with smoke.
FX: The cubes forming the new LWT logo.
Cheesy Factor: Not cheesy at all-in fact, this is one of the best animations I personally have seen.
Music: A hit followed by a string section climaxing in a four-note fanfare.
Availability: Sadly extinct.
Scare Factor: None, A VERY nice logo with as I noted some EXCELLENT animation!
10th Logo
(1999-2000)
Nickname: "TV From The Heart"
Logo: On a blue background with spinning hearts, the letters "LWT" in a similar style as logo 8 are in the center. A blue border is around the logo, and at the bottom of the border in a blue square are the yellow letters "itv".
Variant: A short film culminating in the appearance of a heart usually precedes this logo. However, there is a standard animated logo that shows the logo formed by yellow lines.
FX: The spinning hearts
Cheesy Factor: The spinning hearts look cheesy.
Music: A tense orchestrated fanfare culminating in a four-note piano fanfare.
Availability: Extinct in this region, but this is one of ITV's generic logos-and as such appears elsewhere with a different logo(for example: Yorkshire)
Scare Factor: None, a clean (and BORING) logo.
11th Logo
(2000-2002)
Nickname: "The Video Wall"
Logo: A crowd of people, shown in silhouette, are watching a red video wall. The camera zooms towards the wall and then "flashes" to the LWT/ITV logo like in logo 9, scrunched up and rotated. The logo rotates to its normal position and we zoom out to see it pictured on the video wall, with red "static" behind it. The web address, www.g-wizz.net/lwt appears below.
Variant: Starting in 2001, the ITV logo at the bottom is replaced with an identical ITV1 logo, following the name change for the network.
FX: The video wall
Cheesy Factor: None, a return to LWT's strength-good, creative logos.
Music: A rather electronic theme.
Availability: No longer current. This ident was sadly to be LWT's last, as the new branding for ITV1 as of October 27, 2002 called for a generic, flagship London region that gave the city no regional identity. The new region is known offscreen as "ITV1 London" and operates both weekdays and weekends.
Scare Factor: None, in fact, complaints by viewers that the previous logo was tacky probably led to this one! Nonetheless, this logo was a fitting end to an ITV company with a long history of famous logos.