With the opportunity to create new Idents for the channel, our response was to push boundaries as well as the perception that an identity is something created and then left and rotated for a period of time. We wanted to create a new on-screen identity that emphasised the creativity that sits at the heart of ITV as a broadcaster in 2019.

We decided that for every week in 2019, ITV would hand over their identity to a different British artist. 52 weeks. 52 artists. 52 sets of idents. As such, a different artist will create a piece of work every week showing their creative expression and personal interpretation of the ITV logo. Whilst surprising and entertaining audiences, we have also given a platform to both the brightest, established and emerging UK-based creative talent.

We worked with artistic director, curator and consultant Charlie Levine, to source and curate the artists to take part in this project, who are from a diverse range of backgrounds and are a mix of up-and-coming and established artists, working across any visual arts discipline.

Levine issued a brief on behalf of ITV inviting expressions of interest from artists to take part in the year long project for the broadcaster, which has been woven into the fabric of British popular culture for 50 years.

The brief described how the project is intended to highlight ITV’s commitment to endless creativity, with an idea that would see our on-screen identity constantly reinvented, entertaining the audience and giving a platform to UK-based creative talent.

As part of the project, ITV also dedicated one week of the year to new student talent, offering opportunities to young artists at the very beginning of their careers, by working with universities in different parts of the country to offer art students the opportunity to design the ITV identity during that month.

An exhibition of the artists’ work is being held in Manchester during the Manchester Art Fair in October 2019, bringing the remarkable idents to the public.

ITV Creative's executive creative director Tony Pipes said: “Idents have been around since the dawn of TV and the way they have behaved has changed very little. We wanted to push against the prevailing convention that idents are set, the idea that they are moving wallpaper that last 5 or 10 years without changing. With this project, we’ve not only given a platform to some of Britain’s best visual artists, but we have also found a way to continually entertain and surprise our viewers. This work reflects ITV as a 21st century broadcaster, part of the fabric of culture, as an endlessly creative organisation. After all, we don’t just curate, as a company we constantly commission and create a world class content and this was a way to express that on air. The pieces are beautiful, daring, entertaining and sometimes challenging and that is ok because that is exactly what good TV should be. The most exhilarating thing is that this project is only just starting. A world of creativity and opportunity still awaits us throughout the year. It’s really exciting.”