BB
So, it's been a while - a long, long time in fact - since I last put together a mock, but having seen an awful lot of studio recreations and the like in The Gallery lately, I felt that it was time. Also, I've had flu lately, so I've had a good deal of spare time on my hands.
A couple of caveats. First of all, there are a couple of glitches here and there in the set; I'll be the first to admit that these aren't absolutely pixel perfect (in fact, in some of the images, there’s a rather irritating pixel-thin gap between the DOG and clock). Additionally, while I generally pride myself on decent spelling and grammar, there's almost certainly a typo or two in the mix. I’d be grateful if you could overlook these minor fùck-ups on my part, and try to see past them to the underlying designs.
Your feedback is greatly appreciated - indeed, that's the only reason for putting it up here - and I know that these won't be to everyone's tastes. Many may find them derivative and unoriginal, perhaps one or two may think they're the bees knees. If the majority of you are ambivalent, then my work in designing an on-air graphics set is probably done - after all, the purpose of these graphics on screen is not to stand out and demand attention for themselves, but to add to the story being told to make it easier for viewers to follow what's happening.
Whether or not I've succeeded in that respect, I shaln't be the judge.
The idea here was not to design something revolutionary, but to look at how the existing BBC News design set could be refreshed. I don't expect a major design overhaul any time soon, and I think it's more likely that the current look will be mashed and updated rather than binned and replaced. With that in mind, many elements of this design set will be familiar, but I hope you'll see enough freshness here to find the overall effect appealing.
This is a wholesale update to the current Lambie-Nairn designed graphic set. I hope that you'll see flexibility that can extend to those outlets not explicitly covered here, such as BBC Persian and Arabic, An La, Newyddion, and others.
One other note is that I've deliberately ignored 4:3 safe areas. With digital switchover next year, there's simply no justification any longer for 4:3 to be the de facto standard. In the real world, of course, the BBC would realistically be the very last to switch to full widescreen - not least because half of the middle classes would be decrying the changes, owing to the fact that they have their TVs set up in 4:3 mode stretched to fill a widescreen display. I'm taking a bit of creative licence here in assuming that the majority of licence fee payers are moderately intelligent, and not a bunch of whining little bitches that don't like change.
As is my custom, I'd like to illustrate the range of elements through a narrative of sorts that showcases the various components of the design and their use in practice.
The new look kicks off with Breakfast. Before anything else, I must give credit to TV Forum's mdta, from whom I've plucked a couple of design elements. The slide from Breakfast is not mine, but Martin's, from his outstanding Breakfast video mock at http://youtu.be/yvoRjk-m87Q . The countdown slide is from another of Martin's video designs - http://youtu.be/W2KCO0OKfrI . (And if you really want your mind blown, check out his awesome video mock of the BBC World News breakfiller - http://youtu.be/rH2-ZqM-Cts ).
I *cough* 'borrowed' these designs from Martin because I believe they fit in so much better with the overall Lambie-Nairn set than their current on-air counterparts, but more importantly because Martin is a much better designer than I could ever hope to be.
To the designs.
0600 - A new look to Breakfast ushers in the day, finally ridding us of the ghastly red disco ball. Two elements of this slide are important, though. First of all, the stripped BBC News logo in a long horizontal box, rather than the stacked version in the taller box; the stripped version is now the only one used across all News outlets. Additionally, the programme is branded on the slide as just 'Breakfast', rather than 'BBC Breakfast', prioritising the BBC News brand.
Identifier/DOG animation. The solid red background slides up first, and then the logo itself - in stripped format, natch - slides up and fades in. The animation is quick, immediate.
Clock animation. When the DOG is in place, the clock background slides out to the right, with a similar animation style to the supers currently used by BBC News.
When the background is in place, the clock fades in. The complete DOG + clock structure is what I refer to as 'mast + flag', and it's a key component of the overall look. Unlike Breakfast today, the BBC News logo is permanently in place during the programme.
When the DOG + clock are in place, a new mast background slides up alongside the clock...
...and the Headlines title slides up and fades in, in the same style as the BBC News DOG. The ticker background slides out of the mast. Again, the animation style is very quick and snappy. Think about how long it takes for the name or story graphics to appear on BBC News today - there's a clear and distinct animation in play, but it's more or less immediate.
When the white Headlines mast and the ticker background are placed, the ticker text begins to scroll. Each 'story' on the ticker has a one- or two-word title, presented here in bold, solid white to match the Headlines mast. The body text is in a light grey.
As the leading ticker text closes in on the Headlines mast, the mast recedes to its left-most edge...
...leaving a thin solid white line into which the scrolling text disappears. Stories on the ticker are seperated by three heavily faded grey squares.
When a complete section of ticker content - in this case, the headlines - has scrolled off, the next mast slides up over the previous one.
The Business mast is now in place. Business stories are colour-coded in a soft blue, with the ticker mast and ticker story titles both adopting this colour. Above the clock, a Breakfast logo slides up. This is another key element of the new BBC News look. This logo area is called the "balloon", and is used to brand specific programming. To the right of the Breakfast balloon, a thin orange mast also slides up.
When the balloon and upper mast are positioned, the white background shoots out of the mast to form the background to the main super....
...and then text wipes/types (similar to the current style) onto the super.
As you can see, there are two typography elements in play here. Branding remains in Gill Sans, matching the programme titles and the overall BBC News look. Other typographical elements, such as the clock, supers and ticker, are all in Swiss with slightly tightened kerning. This better integrates the on air look with the GEL-driven of the BBC News site, which uses Arial/Helvetica.
When the graphics are coming off screen, the balloon first wipes off into the upper mast...
...and the upper mast then wipes off the super.
As today, there are numerous 'sections' to the ticker's content, and each is colour coded. As you've already seen, Headlines is white, and Business is blue; Markets is a light purple/lilac (allowing red 'down'/'negative' and green 'up'/'positive' arrows to be more clear)...
...Sport takes on BBC Sport's familiar bright yellow...
...Interactive takes on BBC iPlayer's hot pink...
...and Have Your Say goes for a bright green.
These colours are used not just for masts and story titles, but extend into other presentation elements too. Full-screen promotions for Have Your Say would have a predominantly charcoal + bright green theme; World Business Report would take the vibrant blue of Business as its core colour. That's not to say that each of these elements must solely adhere to its colours and no other, but these are colours are the base from which designs begin.
The tickers shown above for Business, Sport, Interactive and Have Your Say all follow the same animation behaviour as that for Headlines, explained at the top - where the mast slides up, and then recedes to a thin 'flagpole' along the left ticker edge.
0607 - After running through the main headlines, it's time for a report in the field. Louisa Baldine is reporting - on a rather badly designed bridge, by the look of things; the balloon and main super animate on and off in the same way as explained further up the page for Bill and Sian's name graphics. This slide also shows the Sport colour coding for the ticker.
As with the correspondent/reporting super above, the same animation/layout is used for name-checking guests; a large upper line of text, slightly smaller text below it.
When live on location, the balloon can be removed independently of the main super. In this case, the balloon and super have animated on to the screen; then the Breakfast balloon has wiped off, leaving the guest's credentials on screen for a bit longer. The LIVE/Location bugs slide up from above the DOG/clock, in the same way as the balloon does when it animates on. As with all other animations in the set, these are snappy and instant. Stuff happens on screen, things move about, but it doesn't make a fuss about doing it - it happens quickly and without drama.
A couple of caveats. First of all, there are a couple of glitches here and there in the set; I'll be the first to admit that these aren't absolutely pixel perfect (in fact, in some of the images, there’s a rather irritating pixel-thin gap between the DOG and clock). Additionally, while I generally pride myself on decent spelling and grammar, there's almost certainly a typo or two in the mix. I’d be grateful if you could overlook these minor fùck-ups on my part, and try to see past them to the underlying designs.
Your feedback is greatly appreciated - indeed, that's the only reason for putting it up here - and I know that these won't be to everyone's tastes. Many may find them derivative and unoriginal, perhaps one or two may think they're the bees knees. If the majority of you are ambivalent, then my work in designing an on-air graphics set is probably done - after all, the purpose of these graphics on screen is not to stand out and demand attention for themselves, but to add to the story being told to make it easier for viewers to follow what's happening.
Whether or not I've succeeded in that respect, I shaln't be the judge.
The idea here was not to design something revolutionary, but to look at how the existing BBC News design set could be refreshed. I don't expect a major design overhaul any time soon, and I think it's more likely that the current look will be mashed and updated rather than binned and replaced. With that in mind, many elements of this design set will be familiar, but I hope you'll see enough freshness here to find the overall effect appealing.
This is a wholesale update to the current Lambie-Nairn designed graphic set. I hope that you'll see flexibility that can extend to those outlets not explicitly covered here, such as BBC Persian and Arabic, An La, Newyddion, and others.
One other note is that I've deliberately ignored 4:3 safe areas. With digital switchover next year, there's simply no justification any longer for 4:3 to be the de facto standard. In the real world, of course, the BBC would realistically be the very last to switch to full widescreen - not least because half of the middle classes would be decrying the changes, owing to the fact that they have their TVs set up in 4:3 mode stretched to fill a widescreen display. I'm taking a bit of creative licence here in assuming that the majority of licence fee payers are moderately intelligent, and not a bunch of whining little bitches that don't like change.
As is my custom, I'd like to illustrate the range of elements through a narrative of sorts that showcases the various components of the design and their use in practice.
The new look kicks off with Breakfast. Before anything else, I must give credit to TV Forum's mdta, from whom I've plucked a couple of design elements. The slide from Breakfast is not mine, but Martin's, from his outstanding Breakfast video mock at http://youtu.be/yvoRjk-m87Q . The countdown slide is from another of Martin's video designs - http://youtu.be/W2KCO0OKfrI . (And if you really want your mind blown, check out his awesome video mock of the BBC World News breakfiller - http://youtu.be/rH2-ZqM-Cts ).
I *cough* 'borrowed' these designs from Martin because I believe they fit in so much better with the overall Lambie-Nairn set than their current on-air counterparts, but more importantly because Martin is a much better designer than I could ever hope to be.
To the designs.
0600 - A new look to Breakfast ushers in the day, finally ridding us of the ghastly red disco ball. Two elements of this slide are important, though. First of all, the stripped BBC News logo in a long horizontal box, rather than the stacked version in the taller box; the stripped version is now the only one used across all News outlets. Additionally, the programme is branded on the slide as just 'Breakfast', rather than 'BBC Breakfast', prioritising the BBC News brand.
Identifier/DOG animation. The solid red background slides up first, and then the logo itself - in stripped format, natch - slides up and fades in. The animation is quick, immediate.
Clock animation. When the DOG is in place, the clock background slides out to the right, with a similar animation style to the supers currently used by BBC News.
When the background is in place, the clock fades in. The complete DOG + clock structure is what I refer to as 'mast + flag', and it's a key component of the overall look. Unlike Breakfast today, the BBC News logo is permanently in place during the programme.
When the DOG + clock are in place, a new mast background slides up alongside the clock...
...and the Headlines title slides up and fades in, in the same style as the BBC News DOG. The ticker background slides out of the mast. Again, the animation style is very quick and snappy. Think about how long it takes for the name or story graphics to appear on BBC News today - there's a clear and distinct animation in play, but it's more or less immediate.
When the white Headlines mast and the ticker background are placed, the ticker text begins to scroll. Each 'story' on the ticker has a one- or two-word title, presented here in bold, solid white to match the Headlines mast. The body text is in a light grey.
As the leading ticker text closes in on the Headlines mast, the mast recedes to its left-most edge...
...leaving a thin solid white line into which the scrolling text disappears. Stories on the ticker are seperated by three heavily faded grey squares.
When a complete section of ticker content - in this case, the headlines - has scrolled off, the next mast slides up over the previous one.
The Business mast is now in place. Business stories are colour-coded in a soft blue, with the ticker mast and ticker story titles both adopting this colour. Above the clock, a Breakfast logo slides up. This is another key element of the new BBC News look. This logo area is called the "balloon", and is used to brand specific programming. To the right of the Breakfast balloon, a thin orange mast also slides up.
When the balloon and upper mast are positioned, the white background shoots out of the mast to form the background to the main super....
...and then text wipes/types (similar to the current style) onto the super.
As you can see, there are two typography elements in play here. Branding remains in Gill Sans, matching the programme titles and the overall BBC News look. Other typographical elements, such as the clock, supers and ticker, are all in Swiss with slightly tightened kerning. This better integrates the on air look with the GEL-driven of the BBC News site, which uses Arial/Helvetica.
When the graphics are coming off screen, the balloon first wipes off into the upper mast...
...and the upper mast then wipes off the super.
As today, there are numerous 'sections' to the ticker's content, and each is colour coded. As you've already seen, Headlines is white, and Business is blue; Markets is a light purple/lilac (allowing red 'down'/'negative' and green 'up'/'positive' arrows to be more clear)...
...Sport takes on BBC Sport's familiar bright yellow...
...Interactive takes on BBC iPlayer's hot pink...
...and Have Your Say goes for a bright green.
These colours are used not just for masts and story titles, but extend into other presentation elements too. Full-screen promotions for Have Your Say would have a predominantly charcoal + bright green theme; World Business Report would take the vibrant blue of Business as its core colour. That's not to say that each of these elements must solely adhere to its colours and no other, but these are colours are the base from which designs begin.
The tickers shown above for Business, Sport, Interactive and Have Your Say all follow the same animation behaviour as that for Headlines, explained at the top - where the mast slides up, and then recedes to a thin 'flagpole' along the left ticker edge.
0607 - After running through the main headlines, it's time for a report in the field. Louisa Baldine is reporting - on a rather badly designed bridge, by the look of things; the balloon and main super animate on and off in the same way as explained further up the page for Bill and Sian's name graphics. This slide also shows the Sport colour coding for the ticker.
As with the correspondent/reporting super above, the same animation/layout is used for name-checking guests; a large upper line of text, slightly smaller text below it.
When live on location, the balloon can be removed independently of the main super. In this case, the balloon and super have animated on to the screen; then the Breakfast balloon has wiped off, leaving the guest's credentials on screen for a bit longer. The LIVE/Location bugs slide up from above the DOG/clock, in the same way as the balloon does when it animates on. As with all other animations in the set, these are snappy and instant. Stuff happens on screen, things move about, but it doesn't make a fuss about doing it - it happens quickly and without drama.
Last edited by BBC LDN on 15 December 2011 9:49pm
