WMAQ-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, serving as the market’s NBC outlet. According to Logopedia, the current logo was introduced in January 2012, ahead of Super Bowl XLVI. The on-air identity for WMAQ-TV was famous for 13 years, with on air graphics, promotional elements and more. It uses Neue Helvetica for the 5, “Chicago” and “News”.

From Wikipedia:

The fiftieth season of the American sketch comedy late night television program Saturday Night Live premiered on September 28, 2024 on NBC and Peacock, with host Jean Smart and musical guest Jelly Roll.

Acme Gothic, specifically Acme Gothic Wide, is used for the main logo, with ITC Avant Garde Gothic being used for the “50,” when it appears.

Los Angeles-based Capacity worked with US TV network NBC on a branding system revamp which launched September 2009.

Art Director Alex Mapar said the team were going for “a conceptually & stategically driven humanized identity, away from the usual fluffed up, unauthentic, solely visual treatment of most contemporary Network branding.” [source]

Creative Director: Ellerey Gave
Art Directors: Ellerey Gave, Alex Mapar

Houschka is actually still in use on every NBC and Universal TV property. It comes on-screen during every show (STRETCHED!) to display each program's TV rating.

Season 1 title featuring a modified version of Fanfare

Title sequence for the TV show Quantum Leap that ran from 1989 to 1993, designed by Betty Green.

The title itself features a modified version of Fanfare with triangles added in the Q and A. The season 1 version of the title sequence also uses Fanfare for the years that flash by, and the bold weight of Kabel Condensed for the credits.

Seasons 2 to 5 continue to use Fanfare for the main title, now with beveled edges, but switches to Dynamo for the years and Futura Extra Bold Condensed for the credits.

Fanfare used for the years flashing by in the season 1 intro

Bold weight Kabel Condensed for the season 1 opening credits.

Season 2–5 title now with beveled edges and Futura Extra Bold Condensed for the credits

Composite images of the years scrolling by in Dynamo in the season 2–5 version of the title sequence

Futura Extra Bold Condensed used for the season 2–5 version of the opening credits

Legendary sketch show Saturday Night Live debuted a new look and title sequence for the premiere of its 48th season on October 1st, 2022. As it has been the case since 1995, Emily Oberman led the team at Pentagram to create this new design for the show, working closely with photographer Mary Ellen Matthews and director Mike Diva to bring this new identity to life on the screen.

This makeover comes in the midst of a huge change in the show as eight of their twenty-one cast members depart, allowing for the start of another era in SNL's lengthy history.

The logo itself is set in a custom version of Nik Thoenen's Blender, given the name of Blender Bass-o-Matic SNL. As the show approaches its fiftieth season, its style "pays tribute to the original typography in a way that sharp-eyed fans will appreciate" by bringing back the lowercase "n" from the show's first logo, then set in Futura Display. Pentagram picked Blender as the basis of this new identity as it is "a blend of different types of letterforms––some curved, some sharp––which felt related to the structure of SNL itself and its many diverse players." [Pentagram]

However, the font is not alone. Combined with Blender, the cast names are shown in Mark Simonson’s Grad – this pairing of the bold and modern Blender with the stylish and elegant Grad conveys what both Pentagram and Lorne Michaels envision for this new era of Saturday Night Live - something fresh, bold and exciting.

Also, borrowing from their last major design change in 2014, the logo's flexible nature provides ample opportunities for photographer Mary Ellen Matthews to place the host and musical guest within the frame that the words provide.

Saturday Night Live bumper, “Miles Teller/Kendrick Lamar” (October 1st, 2022)

Saturday Night Live bumper, “Miles Teller/Kendrick Lamar” (October 1st, 2022)

Did the designer of this poster already know that Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather would win the Academy Award for Best Picture? Or is it a coincidence that they went with a typeface by an Italian American designer? The Art Deco caps with stripe pattern are from Moon Walk, drawn by Richard Nebiolo for Photo-Lettering before 1971. The designer from New Jersey had previously done the lettering for the “Moonwalk” logo which actually traveled to the moon, for which he received a personal award from NASA.

Also, was Nebiolo’s Moon Walk intentionally paired with Eurostile, a typeface that originated at the Nebiolo foundry in Turin, Italy? To my knowledge, there is no connection between the foundry and the designer beyond the name.

The 45th Annual Academy Awards took place on March 27, 1973 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles and were broadcast by NBC. From Wikipedia:

The ceremony was marked by Marlon Brando's boycott of the Oscars and his sending of Sacheen Littlefeather to explain why he couldn’t show up to collect his Best Actor award for The Godfather, and by Charlie Chaplin's only competitive Oscar win for Best Original Dramatic Score for his 20-year-old film Limelight, which was eligible because it did not screen in Los Angeles until 1972. […] Cabaret, Bob Fosse’s adaptation of the Broadway stage musical, set a record for the most Oscars won without winning Best Picture. Best Picture winner The Godfather received only three Academy Awards.

Type as image: a grand multicolored use of Robert Montgomery’s Pousse Cafe (Photo-Lettering, 1969), on the poster for the 1972 Oscars.

The 44th Annual Academy Awards took place on April 10, 1972 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles and were broadcast by NBC. The French Connection won five Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director (William Friedkin), and Best Actor (Gene Hackman). Jane Fonda won Best Actress (in Klute), and Charlie Chaplin received an Honorary Academy Award.

The final score of Super Bowl 52, shown in Ringside.

For Super Bowl 52 in February 2018, NBC used Ringside for their score bug. It remained in use in NFL broadcasts until Super Bowl 56 in 2022. See also the post about the NFL score bug by CBS, using FF DIN.

From Wikipedia:

Saturday Night Live (also known simply as SNL) is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol. The show premiere was hosted by George Carlin on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title NBC’s Saturday Night.

From October 1988 (season 14) to May 1995 (season 20), the TV show logo was based on Neville Brody’s Industria. The screenshots seen here are from the SNL intro of Season 18, Episode 1, which aired on September 26, 1992. A picture of the logo on a T-shirt is shown in the last image.

The Office is a mockumentary style TV show created by Ricky Gervais and based on his original UK programmme adapted for American television. The show ran from 2005 to 2013. The narrative revolves around a group of typical office workers, where the workday consists of ego clashes, inappropriate behaviour, and tedium. It was instrumental in bringing Mindy Kaling and Steve Carrell to prominence and is now considered a cult classic.

Jimmy Fallon was announced as the new host of Late Night in 2008, replacing Conan O’Brien. The logo for the new show was taken to a vote in early January 2009. All 3 choices were supplied by Emily Oberman and Bonnie Siegler’s former company Number Seventeen. Fans of the show (which hadn’t yet aired) spoke and the winner was revealed on January 13, 2009.

The logo featuring Font Bureau’s Bureau Grot stuck for the show’s whole run until 2014, when Jimmy Fallon took the reigns of The Tonight Show (featuring Sharp Sans 1).

One of Fallon’s weekly gags on Late Night was called “Thank You Notes.” The sketch was a hit for the show and was made into a book. The first book spawned a sequel. Fallon has carried this over to The Tonight Show.

This looks to have been supplied by the design staff from the show. Possibly, so that guests could make official call-outs on social media.

Ew! is another long-running sketch from the show.

A window at Rockefeller Center possibly at the NBC store, displays "Thank You Notes" quotations. Quotations set in ITC Avant Garde.

Dressing room display.

A new title sequence debuted for Saturday Night Live's 44th Season on September 29th 2018. The show's logotype remains the same with Commercial Type’s Druk Condensed. Fatype’s Baton replaces Druk for cast member and featured player credits.

Emily Oberman yet again led her team at Pentagram on this project. [Pentagram]

SNL director Oz Rodriguez & photographer Mary Ellen Matthews also worked on the project. [SNL]

Making use of what famed type designer Nick Shinn called, “carefully naive letter forms.” [Typographica]

Baton was originally commissioned by Yorgo Tloupas and Paul Chemetoff for the redesign of GQ France magazine.

Whatchoo talkin’ bout, Willis?

Diff’rent Strokes is an American sitcom that aired on NBC from 1978 to 1985, and on ABC from 1985 to 1986. Despite some flourishes, the title font is Cooper Black Italic for “Diff’rent” and Cooper Black for “Strokes”.

In the titles of the first episode, the letterforms didn’t have a shadow yet.

“NBC’s legendary sketch comedy show “Saturday Night Live” launched its 38th season this month with a new title sequence designed by Pentagram’s Emily Oberman and team. Inspired by the lights and architecture of New York City at night, the dynamic, highly graphic sequence deconstructs the cast, title typography and the city itself through a shimmering, slightly trippy prism of dots and angles.” — Pentagram

Gotham was customized with a special dotted version for the sequence.

Saturday Night Live Title Sequence (2012) from Pentagram on Vimeo.

This stacked-and-justified treatment for SNL was perhaps a callback to the sketch show’s early 1980s identity.

The Tonight Show (originally just Tonight) will celebrate its sixtieth birthday in 2014. Coincidentally, the longest running non-news TV program happens to have a new host in Jimmy Fallon. Design agency Pentagram took a somewhat modern approach to an identity for a show that is changing in many ways. The design team chose not to reference any of the show's past designs. This time, the logotype has two simple components, a realistic image of Earth's moon and Pagan & Sharp’s relatively new typeface Sharp Sans.

Lucas Sharp’s Sharp Sans looks very familar. The typeface borrows from geometrics like Futura and Avant Garde. Humanist references can be spotted throughout. Italic weights have swash alternates.

Sharp Sans also shows up in the graphics for the Tonight Show's first half-hour comedy sketches. Notice the uppercase 'R' with its Avant Garde influence.

Past Tonight Show logos have been everything from cute to gawky. Each proved to be a sign of design fads and eccentricities of the time period. Carson’s identity changed many times, but it was set in University Roman for nearly a decade. Jay Leno's worst logos often displayed the “dark side” of new digital typographic technologies (squishing and forced italics). Maybe the coolest Tonight Show identity ever, Conan O’Brien's used a modified version of Neutraface No. 2.

Pentagram's Emily Oberman also designed the logos for 30 Rock and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon with her former business partner Bonnie Siegler. Her most visible and longest standing TV identity is her 2006 reimagining of Saturday Night Live's logotype. Oberman used Gotham Ultra for its first big outing. The weekly exposure set H&Co.'s Gotham on a course for world domination.

NBC currently uses a version of Mark van Bronkhorst's Sweet Sans, called Sweet Sans On Air, for most of its promotional content and website.

The company featured on the American TV show “The Office”.

The fictional parent corporation on the TV show “The Office”. The alternate swash ‘a’ is used.