Almashhad channel ident

• ClientAlmashhad TV
• Year2025
• Role3D artist · Motion designer
• ToolsBlender 3D · After Effects
• DisciplineChannel ident · Logo animation
• DeliveryOn-air · Smart TV

An ident is a signature, not a film

A channel ident has a job most animation does not: it has to be recognisable in under three seconds, in any context, at the end of a break the viewer was not paying attention to. Everything in it is judged on whether it makes the mark more identifiable or less.

That constraint pushes the work away from spectacle. The logo does not need to be reinvented; it needs to be given dimension, weight and a reveal that always lands the same way.

Building the mark in 3D

The logo was rebuilt as geometry in Blender 3D rather than extruded from a flat vector, so the bevels, thickness and edge highlights are designed rather than defaulted. Lighting was matched to the channel's brand colour so the mark reads as the correct colour under specular highlight, not just in flat fill — a distinction that only shows up once the thing is moving.

Grade, glow and final timing were done in After Effects.

Two screens, one build

• Broadcast. Safe areas, legibility across a room, and behaviour under compression.
• Smart TV. Idents sit inside app interfaces where they are often scaled down and surrounded by other channels' artwork. The mark has to survive being small and adjacent to competitors.
• The same asset. Rather than two designs, one build with delivery variants — because two designs drift apart the moment either is amended.

Where this sits in a package

An ident is one component of a channel system that also includes opens, lower thirds, straps and bumpers. Designing it in isolation is how packages end up inconsistent. More on that approach in broadcast graphics and channel branding.

Next: Cinematic Title Sequence — smoke, embers and metallic Arabic type →