MUMBAI: This morning, the first ever India edition of the television branding event Promax&BDA kicked off. One of the speakers was Andrea Bednarz who is the founder and creative director of German design group Velvet Design.

She held forth on the factors needed to succeed in designing and updating channel look, logo and ID.

Velvet Design has worked with many international broadcasters including CNN and Middle East news broadcaster Al Jazeera. "While designers are increasingly drawing upon an international core of modernism the local flavour should not be lost.

When designing for a foreign TV brand one must keep in mind and be sensitive towards the local cultural aspects like the music, the channels positioning. It is also important for designers to study the channels content, she said.

The company was put in charge of redesigning Al Jazzera. After 9/11 the broadcaster became famous for its tapes on Bin Laden and it therefore wanted to broaden its image. It saw CNN and BBC as its main rivals and in order to compete sought new standards in look and content.

"The challenge before us in terms of the look was to combine Arab heritage with sophisticated western animation. We put into practice two ideas. These were word matrics and a graphic display system. The aim was to get across the message that the channel was uniform in all content areas. The Al Jazeera logo was redesigned with two columns on either side of it. They represent opinion and counter opinion. Also we had to use the logos exiting colours of blue and baize in a unique way.

"For television ads pushing the channel we also suggested styling proposals for the presenters and anchors. Because Al Jazeera takes into account both Western and local opinion we decided to fuse the music. We had western and Arab musicians. This also helps give the channel an international flavour"

The project took around eight months to complete. Sometime ago Velvet Design also created CNN's promo which is still in use. 'This is CNN' is the tagline. "CNN values are both universal and have an American slant. We therefore used abstract concepts. These were then integrated with different themes to reflect the new age aspirations that the broadcaster represents."

"Another important project was for ECT Singapore from Starhub. The channel needed a standout look as it was moving from just being a movie channel to a general entertainment one. With our graphics we reduced the channel to a blur of light which resembled the tail lights of a car. The dynamism of the channel is represented by the horizontal bars in the promos. In the promos featuring hearts they grow into flow to get across the message that people are at the heart of the channel."

Bednarz added that passion was important ingredient needed for designers tio succeed. "The work is never over unless we are happy. Sometimes we don't stop even if the client is satisfied because we know that only 50 per cent of the job has been done."