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BBC2 (again)

That old chestnut... (March 2011)

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JO
Jonny
Over the last few years I've shared a few of my interpretations of BBC2's current Windows on the World package. Most of those ideas stemmed from design features of campaigns' past. Having decided that was a tad lazy, I've had a go at coming up with something from scratch.

My aim was to create a package that is simple but bold, unfussy, adaptable (both in terms of the nations and for special events) and hopefully with a sprinkling of personality/character - if the 2's going to be a cut-out let's at least make it the star of the show.

Grabs ( Video ):

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w191/2007TopGearDog/bbc211/1.jpg

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w191/2007TopGearDog/bbc211/2.jpg

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w191/2007TopGearDog/bbc211/3.jpg

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w191/2007TopGearDog/bbc211/4.jpg

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w191/2007TopGearDog/bbc211/5.jpg

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w191/2007TopGearDog/bbc211/6.jpg

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w191/2007TopGearDog/bbc211/7.jpg

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w191/2007TopGearDog/bbc211/8.jpg

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w191/2007TopGearDog/bbc211/9.jpg

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w191/2007TopGearDog/bbc211/10.jpg

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w191/2007TopGearDog/bbc211/11.jpg

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w191/2007TopGearDog/bbc211/12.jpg

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w191/2007TopGearDog/bbc211/13.jpg

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w191/2007TopGearDog/bbc211/14.jpg

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w191/2007TopGearDog/bbc211/15.jpg



I had the idea of spreading the playout of the ident across the junction in an attempt to inject some pace and variation into continuity. The original full idents would be retained and played out as required, ie for longer announcements, *not* scrapped a la BBC1.

As ever, questions, thoughts, etc. gratefully received!
Last edited by Jonny on 28 July 2011 6:26pm - 3 times in total
JA
james
I really like how the now and next ties in to the next promo. The only thing I would change would be the 'Subtitles' text as it wouldn't be able to be viewed on a 4:3 telly. Other than that, brilliant!
JO
Jonny
james posted:
I really like how the now and next ties in to the next promo. The only thing I would change would be the 'Subtitles' text as it wouldn't be able to be viewed on a 4:3 telly. Other than that, brilliant!

Nice to know I'm not the only one who muses over the smaller details!

It's actually *just* inside the 4:3 safe area. I wanted the BBC logo to remain in the same position as on the trails with the Subtitles tag sitting next to it. Placing it to the right would create "BBC Subtitles" - not ideal. Granted I haven't allowed for overscan but as the tag is essentially non-essential information following 100% subtitling I don't think its appearance is overly important... but its inclusion does help mocks look more realistic, I find.

Thanks for your comments!
MW
Mike W
I love this. Simple as. Someone has finally shown some promise and scope for development in this forum.

I love the two pillars next to the programme trails

It's a solid 4 stars.
DB
dbl
Very nice work, the transition styles sort of remind me of how they do it in Europe.
VM
VMPhil
This is brilliant; it's an original idea. There are three things I don't like, however. Firstly, the transition from the next slide to the promo just doesn't work for me. It adds unnecessary time and I'd prefer it if it just cut to the promo like now. Also, it would work in an ideal world, but I don't think it would work well in practice.

Secondly, I don't like the 'Escape 2', 'Do this with 2', '2 does that to you' animations that appear at the beginning of promos, I think they don't really add to the promo and distract you from the theme of the promo.

Thirdly, the programme information at the end of a promo should just fade in IMO, get rid of the sliding animation, which is again adding time to when you'll find out the vital info on when the show is on, and the bouncing bars just don't really work, again IMO.

And finally, in an ideal world the BBC would just get rid of the 'Subtitles' notifier, but if it had to stay I think I'd just keep it the corner, or have it fade out before the BBC logo fades in. All in all however, a great idea and I'd like to see the evolution of this. 4 stars.
JA
Jake
Really good, I love the way the way they transition. Just shows how nice BBC2's presentation could be.
MA
Malpass
Based on the BBC2NI image, would BBC Two simply be BBC2?
MI
mightynine
It looks good.

My only thoughts on what could change - maybe drop the two stripes on the lower left and replace that with a 2. Then you wouldn't have the smaller 2 next to the BBC logo that doesn't match.
03
030293
I'm loving the concept of this! At first glance I thought 'meh', but after looking through and thinking, it looks pretty good!

With the 'Come home 2' slogan, I think that should only be a few second thing, instead of remaining on screen through the promo. The 'Come Home' part could animate out and just leave the '2' behind as the channel ID.

Looks pretty good though! Very Happy
RO
rob Founding member
Jonny, those are superb. Much better than what we've got at the moment.
PC
Paul Clark
Some good changes here - keeping the original aqua colour for general board use is good, but in particular going for a more pastel colour palette, as indicated in the stills / video here is a wise sensible move; it is more complimentary to the main symbols. Also nice to see the '2' featuring as a proper logo in the technical sense, on the trail slogans. The new idea to have it read as part of a phrase works effectively.

Onto the areas that could be looked at - the small (Avenir?) '2' next to the BBC logo at the end of trails: this seems incongruous - all use of '2' on screen to refer to BBC2 should use the AMV '2' in line with the idents. It's not practical to use at very small sizes of course, so I can partly see why you've done what you have - my first thought is to resolve this by removing that small plain 2 altogether, but then it is a matter of where to use the AMV '2' instead, and is where consistency comes into play. Could look quite tidy to the left of the vertical bars wherever you wish to position them, but that still leaves the issue of where to the position the BBC logo which should accompany it. In any case, it may require a rethink of the end trail text positioning, if you wish to retain the bottom-left 'BBC' and / or have the '2' still positioned to its right.

A simple but effective approach to the pointers - just one very minor suggestion to create a better distinction between the 'Next on' and programme title could be to try the latter in a heavier weight - but it should be noted at how much more eye-friendly (than the current pres) this already appears to be!

I see no other problems with the actual design and layout, but I do question the overall flow - transitions from pointer to trailer are handled very nicely, but I'm not sure how much they really bring to the look - whether it is an effect for the sake of it, where a traditional cut would serve just as well or even be less 'clunky', perhaps so?

Possibly my biggest doubt is the effectiveness of the short ident cuts between trails. This is more of a question of the choice of cuts and source material, rather than the actual use of short sting-like sequences as presentation elements, which I think are absolutely a fine idea to be looking at - so it's just the approach. Some of the original '07 stings could work better; not sure if I have examples myself anymore, but being SFX-only, they would avoid the slightly jarring mid-music cuts shown here. And for example, the two entirely unique Seascape stings (showing the top and the base of the '2' respectively) might work well in this way as inserts ahead of trails in the same junction.

So despite those doubts about the execution, I can still understand the thinking behind everything. The layout is clear and uncomplicated, palette is more in line with the main identity - overall this some very good, well-considered design. As always, nice to see ideas from you Wink

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