With the proliferation of media, culture doesn't have much time to catch on. While many are regularly focused on the under 24 set, there are some often and easily overlooked elements that compose the cultural tickle trunk that shape how we see the world around us.
This came to mind when thinking about just how powerful TV used to be. A power that started to be eroded in the 80's. Before that, the propaganda machine of TV was at it's peak. But what amazes me is the phenomenal force that design and creative arts had in shaping the power of the machine.
While programing itself came and went, the station IDs and intros of prime properties burned their way into our minds. Today stations, movies and shows have all these swirling soups of flashy metalized graphics. But they really are the filler they are with minimal creative or cultural merit. But when you look to where they came from their history is deep.
Taking Canada as an example, here are some of the station ID's from the 70's and 80's.
Or even the triumphant into to Canada's national newscast in 1978: And, getting really out there, how about the height of the cold war when national sovereignty was naturally battled with the USSR on the hockey rink. This was in 1976: And of course again in 1986: Maybe its just nostalgia, and the muffled HiFi quality sound, but there is something so anthemic and triumphant about these little pieces of content that I find really neat.
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