by Stephen Armstrong
American television has always tended to create fantastic programmes then pump them out surrounded by appalling graphics, confusing break-bumpers and hopeless, cheesy commercials. One of the few noble exceptions, Nick at Nite, the adult part of kids channel Nickelodeon, has done its level best to give the channel some real identity. In the past, however, this has tended towards a rather limp 50s pastiche to fit in with the Laverne and Shirley-, I Love Lucy-, and Bewitched-dominated programming. Last year, New York's hottest illustrator team of Wallpaper* alumnus Chip Wass and Scott Stowell were given carte blanche to update Nick's style. They came up with a new logo [note: we didn't—the logo is the one thing we couldn't touch], classic textures to scroll like, er, wallpaper behind the idents, an Akzidenz Grotesk typeface, informative icons to indicate special moments duting the shows—a guest star, a wacky neighbour and so forth—and a palette of soothing, night-time blues to colour it beautiful. Now the shows are surrounded by a channel that's worth staying up all night for. With a friend, or course.
This article originally appeared in
wallpaper*, April 1999.
