Major MTV overhaul by Dixonbaxi

Dixonbaxi finishes a live shoot today for its radical redesign of music channel MTV’s on-screen personality with a series of 25 idents and a new graphical style.

The iconic MTV logo remains unchanged, but will be more ‘seamlessly’ integrated into the channel’s idents. The channel is scheduled to broadcast its new look on 20 January, and the work is worth a five-figure fee to the consultancy.

MTV wanted to redefine the channel’s personality and decided to ‘up the ante and be slightly funkier and a bit more out there’, says MTV head of on-air UK Georgia Cooke, who commissioned Dixonbaxi. ‘Historically MTV is a maverick brand and its audience likes to be surprised. We want to get back that edge,’ says Cooke.

The group’s work will ‘set the landscape for [MTV’s] graphical elements’, Cooke adds, and aims to lend more coherence to MTV’s on-screen identity.

The live action idents depict a ‘heightened reality’ in which ostensibly normal situations are twisted. ‘The films feature small everyday moments with a skewed take on things. It’s quite Monty Python-esque,’ says Dixonbaxi partner Aporva Baxi.

Elements from each ident, such as an up-close hide of a cow, will resurface in different guises as shorter ‘end boards’ and programme promos, adds Baxi.

Dixonbaxi was awarded the work on the strength of its on-air animated idents for MTV2 (DW 26 September).