We have synthesized three new tetraphenylimidazole derivatives bearing electron donors of different strength. The donors were connected to imidazole via the N1 phenylene. Compounds were accessed via a 2-step synthetic route from inexpensive starting materials. Photophysical investigation revealed a lack of charge transfer character in the N1 donor-substituted imidazoles. Only PXZ-TPI showed CT emission in polar DCM, however, dual prompt emission and dual phosphorescence was observed at low temperature indicating that in this compound chromophores are also decoupled in the excited state, favouring the locally excited state emission. Similar properties were observed for the compound PTZ-TPI, bearing the even stronger electron donor PTZ . This compound demonstrated only LE emission originating from TPI and PTZ in all the investigated media. In the solid state room temperature phosphorescence from PTZ was observed. Our study showed that TPI coupled with donors via N1 position is too weak an electron acceptor to enable ICT, and hence TADF does not occur. Instead, such a design can potentially be used in RTPactive compound design.