It's a failsafe marketing trick - put the words "signature series" on a product, be it a pair of trainers, or a set of golf clubs and its collectibility or cool factor rockets skyward. It was with that rule of thumb in mind that the creative directors at American action sports channel Fuel TV hit upon an effective way to brand their enterprise.

In 2004, the fledgling 24-hour-a-day action sports channel created by Fox Networks was first making its mark. Then-creative director and current VP of marketing Jake Munsey, inspired both by the branding and identity work done for the channel's launch by Brand New School and 'signature series' skateboard decks that marry cool design with action sport culture, proposed the idea of 'signature series' idents.

"Jake, myself and CJ [Olivares, Fuel TV's SVP and assistant general manager] are all design freaks," says current Fuel CD Todd Dever. "And we were looking for a good way to integrate design and art into the channel."

Thus, the first signature ID, created by Saiman Chow, was aired that year, kickstarting the series and labelled as "#1 of 100". Over the past three years, cutting-edge designers and artists such as Dalek, Dean Bradley, Jason Irwin and Andrew Pommier have created signature IDs for the channel, resulting in Promax/BDA gold for the series. While some may have done work within action sports culture in the past (Pommier, for instance, has designed signature skate decks for Toy Machine and Element), other artists are part of Fuel TV's wishlist of talent. The creative freedom offered to them in the project is a draw. Like MTV, another "dream client", the brief is wide open and the interference is kept to a bare minimum.

"The creative direction from Fuel TV is always very open and fun to work on," says Stardust design director Neil Tsai. He worked on two signature ID projects this year; one with illustrator Nathan Reifke which aimed to "portray the universe as a giant machine" complete with interlocking gears and seamless transitions, and another with LA based-art/fashion collective Cardboard Robot. While the collaboration with Reifke was largely a matter of animating his illustrations, the Cardboard Robot piece integrated live action, graphics and 3D animation. "I felt very comfortable having creative discussions with Fuel every time, because they'll always listen and consider," says Tsai.

"Because there weren't any parameters, it didn't even dawn on me to try to incorporate action sports," says Dalek (aka James Marshall), who brought his renowned Space Monkey character to the Fuel TV fray earlier in the series. At the time, the frantic piece was the first thing he'd done that was animated; he's since joined the roster at Transistor as a design director. "I just wanted to take what I'd done before and animate it in a simple context."

As for how the wishlist of artists is arrived at, Dever says, "We try to pick a wide range of people representing what's going on culturally." Producing only two or three signature IDs a year over and above their other scrappy broadcast design work allows them to be choosy - Dever says he'd love Geoff McFetridge (see this report, pg. 38) and Buff Monster to contribute.

And if you're wondering what the connection is between hi-falutin' art and design and down and dirty action sports, it's really quite simple, says Dever. "A lot of these [idents] are individual forms of expression, and a lot of the kids that are skating or surfing look at what they do in the same way."

Fuel TV http://www.fuel.tv
Stardust http://www.stardust.tv
Transistor Studios http://www.transistorstudios.com