625.uk.com - this year's new page!

I've added five mobile-friendly BBC 'Polo Mint' clocks to the Flash-free Files today. These analogue clocks had an "O" in the middle, hence the nickname, and the hour markers getting increasingly fatter from 1 to 12. These were all drawn by Dave Jeffery and used in his YouTube channel. (He's made a video of the clocks, called a A Tube full of Polos.)

I'm particularly fond of the BBC2 1969 COLOUR clock, which I've never seen before.

http://625.uk.com/tv_logos/svg/bbc2_clock_69.gif

I'm not quite sure of the dates of the later BBC2 clocks when the line disappeared so if anyone knows more (or spots any howling mistakes) please let me know It looks like they were in use up to 1974, because the hour hand was longer before the BBC ident relaunch after Christmas 1974, but I don't know why the line was removed if it was still on the BBC2 ident?

Just for fun, you can also switch these clocks to 'widescreen'.

I also discovered by chance last month the identity of the designer of the 1970s Top of the Pops logo. His name is Bob Blagden and I've now linked to a blog post about how he came to design it on a slightly modified (now mobile-friendly) Cult Programme Logos page.

Hope you like the update!

About the Channel 4 clock on that page, it looks like it's rendered only in colours that teletext supported? Apparently the computer used to generate it only had eight colours (of which the clock uses seven), and that would explain the incorrect shade of blue.

Very interesting... You could of course render it in Teletext colours and swap the blue for the unused cyan and that would arguably work better.

Here's what that would look like. [MOCK ALERT!]

http://625.uk.com/tv_logos/svg/c4_clock_mock.asp

Another month has gone by since the last update, and I've now added six more BBC 'Polo Mint' clocks, which should complete the collection of mechanical BBC 1 and BBC 2 network clocks 1969 - 1981.

The update includes the Futura Bold BBC 1 clock from 1974 and the twin-stripe BBC 2 clock from 1979...

http://625.uk.com/bbc_clocks.gif

You can find the updates in The Flash-free Files index.

A December update is now online...

More from the ITV1 celebrity era in 2003 , including the [N][E][X][T] blocks, and the spoofs of the whole package by Harry Hill and E4.

Plus five more Flash-free BBC clocks , including a re-creation of the BBC 1 non-COLOUR clock used before Blue Peter in 1974. (Thanks, as always, to Dave Jeffery.)

http://625.uk.com/tv_logos/svg/bbc1_clock_bw_72.gif

A small update for January...

Three more BBC mechanical clocks from the 1970s have been added to the Flash-free Files , including a makeshift Christmas clock from BBC Midlands...

http://625.uk.com/tv_logos/svg/bbc_midlands_clock_xmas73.gif

And an embarrassing typo has been fixed and a new [N][E][X][T] caption has been added to the ITV celebrity idents page .

Happy New Year!

For February, I've added four BBC Schools Countdown clocks to the Flash-free Files

http://625.uk.com/tv_logos/svg/bbc_schools_clock_81.gif

The dots were never as good as the diamond, but the one with the rotating middle was always my favourite...

Superb Andrew, superb.

Thanks! Credit as always to Dave Jeffery who created the Flash originals.
He has a schools dots YouTube video, made entirely with free software...

Although I've not updated this thread, I have been continuing with monthly updates to the site and in particular to the Flash-free Files

In March , at last animated idents from Granada, including the peculiar, whimsical black and white one where the arrow comes up the screen and prods the "N" in the middle of the station name and makes it bounce. (Yes, really!)

(And also in March, I made the home page responsive, at long last.)



For April 's update, I added the Daytime on Two animated ident, which is just like the standard, electronically-generated twin-striped BBC 2 symbol from 1979, but with a new background. It was first shown in 1983 before schools programmes, after they had made the move from BBC 1.



And yesterday, for the May update, I added five more clocks converted from Flash. (Two from ABC, one each from Border and STV.) Plus, for the first time, the Open University electronically-generated clock.



And now all the electronic clocks do the 'right thing': the minute hand moves every 15 seconds, as before, but now the hour hand only moves when the second hand is on the 12 and the minute is a multiple of 3. I'm not sure why they did this, but after a long time looking at YouTube clips, it seems they all did in the 70s and 80s. (Who knew?!)

There is a long clip of the Open University electronic clock on YouTube that shows the hour hand movement nicely...

Pinging Mr Wiseman: I've just bought a FitBit Versa, there are millions (well, dozens) of third party clock face designs you can download for it, you know where this is going, don't you....

Remember, Remember ITV in November? 14 years ago today, ITV3 launched, the celebrity idents were dropped from ITV1 and the Carlton and LWT names were killed off from the production captions. (And "Granada Anglia" became a thing!)

The ITV logos became stackable and looked increasingly like the BBC's corporate logo



My brand new ITV 2004 page is live today...


And over on the other side (remember when we talked about our channels like that?!), two more Flash conversions - the BBC 2 cylinder and cube models are now Flash-free so you can watch them animate on a tablet or mobile phone.