Kiss FM UK- existing example

Kiss FM is a radio station that is a part of the Bauer Passion portfolio and specialises in hip hop, R&B, pop, urban and house music, broadcasting on FM and National DAB. This station also has digtal broadcasts on DAB Digital Radio, Freeview, Sky, and TalkTalk TV.

Kiss FM started in October 1985, broadcasting only to South London, and then expanded over the whole city on 94 FM. The audience for Kiss grew in 1990 when it 
achived a licence. It has been said that it had 500,000 listeners when operating as a pirate station, with no licence. This station was published by Gordon Mcnamee, Tosca, Pyers Easton and George Power. Kiss FM used a launch of a party theme: 'Kiss Nights' at the Wag Club with the help of a London Club promoter: Guy Wingate. This relates to my personal project as I am using a different form of music to promote my new radio station; live sessions. In 1998 the station was rebranded and the logo was officially changed in 1999. In 2006 there was a second revamp of the brand where ODD designed the new logo. At the launch of this logo the radio station begun to focus on one genre in particular which was dance music.ODD which is a group of people that specialise in a number of things; identity design, brand relaunches, event design curation, visual merchandising, etc.. This brand opened in 2002 and since the launch they have worked with a variety of clients such as: Westfield, ASOS, Nike, Vodafone, Uniqlo, Sony etc.. The ODD brand was launched by a man who is now the creative director of the brand, and is named Nick Stickland. He is a graduate of Architecture from Royal College of Art. He begun his career by working for other architects such as: Eva Jiricna, Richard Rogers, ORMS and FAT. After searching for a compay that specialised in design and communications, he decided to create his own in 2002. 

1990-1998

This logo reminds me of the BBC Radio 1 logo that was designed for the 90s due to the fact that they have both been made for that particular era which is obvious due to the use of bright colours. However the shapes in this logo have been used differently compared to the BBC Radio 1, as this logo uses a symbol/icon. This type of logo represents the radio station visually and creates a direct link between the company name and imagery. I think that the reason for this choice of logo was made as it makes the station highly recognisable to the public from various view points, for example: being far away from the logo where the typography is unclear, but the shape of the logo is still visible which is also supported by the use of the bright colour.

1998-2006

This modification of the Kiss 100 logo uses lettermarks rather than a symbol, but has been creatively designed using typography to add imagery to the logo, which also links to the name of the station, like the logo above. A lettermark form of logo usually uses a symbol that represents the company using its initials or the first letter of the company, whereas kiss have cleverly incorporated this logo type with the last two letters of the brand name by turning the second 's' around and merging it with the first 's' to create a heart shape which is what people would associate with the word 'kiss'. This association with the word 'kiss' has also been thought about regarding the choice of colour as the colour palet for this logo revolves around shades of pink and purple, which is commonly linked to the name of this radio station.

 This logo is the design that has been used by the radio station since 2006 to now. It has evolved from using symbols relating to the name of the company, to the use of this large dynamic shape with points in various directions. I think that the purpose of this was to visually convey the idea that this radio station plays music of a variety of genres (even though it has a main focus; pop) and therefore connects to a wide range of people within an audience. Although this station now uses a ‘combination mark’ type of logo rather than a lettermark or symbol type, the use of a colour relating to the name is still present. A combination mark is a type of logo that combines a symbol with typography.