BET gets updated look

Post, March, 2005 by Marc Loftus

NEW YORK -- Push Creative (www.pushcreative.tv) and Click 3X (www.click3x.com) teamed up on the redesign for network BET, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. The new look is designed to appeal to BET's core demographic of 18- to 24-year-old African-Americans and incorporates the network's star logo in a dark blue color palette.

According to executive creative director Rudy Gaskins of Push Creative, the team was called on to redesign the network's look as well as develop a strategic positioning statement. "One thing that is interesting about finding the color palette and images," says Gaskins, "is that the first direction we went was to search for African motifs. And after we looked at that, we recognized most African-Americans do not resonate to that in their daily lives."

Instead, the package draws on actors, playing themselves, the things they enjoy, and the connection they have with BET.

Over 40 elements were created for the initial re-brand, which debuted in January, including a collection of :30 spots.

In Cafe, a young African-American female talks about the importance of getting together with her friends each week and how they serve as her support network. Barber centers around a young hair cutter who says his shop is its own reality show, with an unbelievable cast of characters. And Urban shows a young hipster, who talks of the importance of music, video and fashion in his life. In each, the subject is standing in front of projected footage detailing their day-to-day life.

Gaskins and Click 3X creative director lain Greenway supervised the live-action shoots. One 14-hour day was spent collecting footage for the rear projection screens. Locations in and around Brooklyn were shot on a Panasonic DVCPRO 50 camera. Gaskins himself shot some 24p footage on a Panasonic AG-DVX100A MiniDV camcorder.

A second day of shooting took place in a studio using 35mm film to capture actors' scripted foreground performances.

Posting took place at Click 3X with Zack Kinney serving as art director/lead designer. The facility used a combination of Adobe After Effects 6.5, Photoshop CS and Illustrator 10 running on a Mac G5, along with Discreet Flame 8.5 to post the project. An Avid running V.1 1.8 software was used to edit.

Kiyoharu Goto served as art director for Push. Pierre Vilmenay at Carbon Design worked on the logo development. Blue Room provided music and sound design for the project.