BBC News 2019 - now with titles, stings and astons

It's been four years since I last posted in here. I've since had another go at playing with After Effects to come up with a set of titles for the BBC News bulletins in a Reith-ian 2019 era.

The premise is a similar idea to 2015: a major rebrand still feels unlikely, so some slight tweaks would be a good way to freshen it all up.

Gone is the trundle cam and the long titles, taking us back to the length we saw around 1999. The headline sequence would also be shorter.

I've always been a fan of customised titles. The cats cradle no longer has place names - instead headlines from the stories you're likely to see in the bulletin. Similarly, some of the news stories that appear on the globe are from the BBC News website that day. I've taken these stories from the infamous BBC News at 10 break-down.

There are pulses on the globe which represent where the BBC has a bureau / correspondent - bar the UK (that could get quite messy). This would change as the make-up of the BBC changes. But it would be a theme that I would progress to the regional news titles. The eagle-eyed may notice some clocks that show 18:00:42 - this is supposed to be real-time (many do seem to have got lost in the render and on another go I might pop some more of these in).



Let me know your thoughts as it's certainly a work in progress.

I must say that I'm thoroughly impressed by this.

I love the on-the-beat editing at 0:02. It reminds me of the Newsround Title Sequence at 0:01 here:



Great work!

That was indeed my influence. Not convinced I've nailed it quite yet.

I like the idea of the headlines replacing place name and that idea of it always changing.

Some things to work on, though are the clock and the world pulses. For the clock, maybe add somewhere else, along with the flash at the start.
I can only just see the pulses on 720p, so maybe try and make them more visible (brighten them up, perhaps?)

Other than that, very good!

Very good. Part of me would love to see an analogue clock at the start (with continuity v/o), which turns into the globe when the titles kick in.

A promising start, chris. Loving the idea of the headlines on the cats-cradle. I did notice the Newsround inspired shake on the beat... the subtle things within the shapes are really lovely, the clock!

Maybe a subtle gradient on the numbers so they don't all look flat?

Looking forward to see where this goes!

I think adding a "shake" is really "too much" for a bulletin as serious and respected as BBC's. The shortened music is an interesting idea, though.

As good as it looks you could never go with the shake as you’d have to edit it out every time there is a major earthquake.

Really nice though.

They didn't edit out the "explosion" in the 2005 titles every time a bomb went off somewhere.

Thanks for your feedback everyone. I've updated the titles.







I've made the clock more visible throughout the titles. The world pulses are visible at 1080 which is what a television should be: I think embedded you can't set it to be 1080 so click through to YouTube to view.




Might give that a crack at some point!


Have tried popping a gradient on them but will keep working on that.



I've reduced the shake as you're not keen but others are. Hopefully that's a nice compromise.



Indeed - they even used it on the day of 7/7!



Here's a BBC News at 10 endboard idea - adding a bit of blue to the titles to give it that 'flagship' bulletin feel.




Again, please add your comments. I'll be giving astons a go and perhaps some regional titles.

Reminds me of the Fox News Alert - breaking news sting. Must be the shake.

Another update for you. I've taken last Friday's BBC News at 9 to give you an idea of what the news channel might look like - titles, stings and astons.

Here's how they animate. You'll notice that the TOTH is shorter and focuses on the pictures - opening straight into the top story and no gfx.

9, 1, 5, 6 and 10 branded bulletins would also now have a short closing sting.



Same again with the 6, titles and stings will always be different thanks to the headlines in the cats cradle and the clocks.




The principle behind the astons is to do away with 4:3 safe areas for items that don't hinder understanding the story. For example, the BBC News logo is outside the safe area, as is the 'programme logo' on the right (nothing would fill this space for generic bulletins). The area is also used for 'Breaking News', 'Business news' etc.

Thanks to doing away with the safe areas, all possible graphics can fit in a maximum of four lines at the bottom.

Some have discussed in other threads that Reith looks odd next to a Gill BBC logo - this design means it will always be stacked and will look less awkward.






I've also provided a few examples of how the astons would translate to other services.

BBC World News - GMT

BBC One - News at 6

BBC Breakfast


And here's how they animate.