I have sent an e-mail to Mike Afford, the graphic designer for BBC Arabic and BBC Weather, so hopefully, we can find out whether this is true, or whether it is just some sick rumour. It will be a great shame if it is true.
i don't see why they feel the need to make BBCArabic and the English language news output look more uniform, it's unlikely that people will watch both. And if they really want to use the same graphics, well, maybe it's the BBCArabic's graphics that should be extended to World and BBCNews. They are clearly superior.
The World Service always has followed the lead of BBC News in it's branding. As a reminder, here is the post relanch branding which came directly from News. But the decision to do this was taken back before the Global News Division was formed (out of BBC Monitoring, BBC World and World Service) and World Service starting broadcasting its own television.
If the powers that be were going to do something bold and stamp their own identity on GND I would have expected it to happen already with BBC World going in a different direction to BBC News. And that really was never going to happen right now, what's the point in spending money just to highlight a channel grouping based on the line management structure of those that work for the channels. And letting every channel brand individually will cost even more money.
I have yet to see the Persian interpretation of the News branding. Apparently all the kits of parts are based around roman left to right languages and need to be 'reinterpreted' for the middle east script. World Service are embarking on a big project now to redesign all their web output to be 1024 pixels wide (like BBC News) so expect branding changes as each new language site is launched. Work on the first four has started with Persian being one, but I don't remember which the other 3 are.
It would be absolutely ridiculous to replace the branding - and if thats always been the intention, why did they go to so much effort with it in the first place. Surely they could have just reworked the existing BBC News branding in the short term.
I hope the music remains, but with the new globe graphics. Oh and BBC Arabic and BBC Persian should get their own colours with the new BBC News globes...
I have sent an e-mail to Mike Afford, the graphic designer for BBC Arabic and BBC Weather, so hopefully, we can find out whether this is true, or whether it is just some sick rumour. It will be a great shame if it is true.
Aren't you being incredibly rude to Bvsh House - who patently has furnished us with some excellent and accurate information about the service already?
It would be absolutely ridiculous to replace the branding - and if tha'ts always been the intention, why did they go to so much effort with it in the first place. Surely they could have just reworked the existing BBC News branding in the short term.
Pure speculation on my part would be that, back in 2005 when the Arabic project was getting started News probably didn't have this rebrand on the radar. The News branding at that time (and currently still is) based around Roman left to right characters, so was unsuitable for use as the channel was not to become 'BBC Arabic' on air.
Also at the time all the Nations and Regions were off doing their own thing with their branding so was perfectly reasonable for Arabic to depart from the corporate look which was looking a bit tired.
There are no immediate plans to rebrand - as there are no resources available to do it. Whether we like it or not, Arabic broadcasts the only news bulletins in non-standard branding anywhere in the BBC - and this position will be even more difficult once Persian launches.
I have sent an e-mail to Mike Afford, the graphic designer for BBC Arabic and BBC Weather, so hopefully, we can find out whether this is true, or whether it is just some sick rumour. It will be a great shame if it is true.
Aren't you being incredibly rude to Bvsh House - who patently has furnished us with some excellent and accurate information about the service already?
I've heard worse things said when we discuss this in the office
I hope the music remains, but with the new globe graphics. Oh and BBC Arabic and BBC Persian should get their own colours with the new BBC News globes...
One thing that has come out of the 'reinterpretation' discussions for Persian, is that there is no equivilent of Gill Sans in any of the Arabic scripts. Which typeface gets used for rendering Farsi as a replacement is still under discussion. The typeface used by BBC Arabic was specially commissioned.
Whether we like it or not, Arabic broadcasts the only news bulletins in non-standard branding anywhere in the BBC - and this position will be even more difficult once Persian launches.
