BBC Arabic

It's official - The last sacred crow of the branding guidelines has been thrown out the window. You can't animate the BBC logo like that, nor should you... It just looks stupid and goes completely against the concept which was to have common corporate logo that is used in conjunction with the service's own unique look. I know they are hyping the BBC aspect, but the titles say nothing about the fact it's an Arabic news channel, let alone news period. At least N24's titles suggest information. This suggests the BBC bought a new Mac Pro and wanted to show off

Hopefully Martin can come up with something a bit more original and he whips the BBC back into line from all the shoddy mismatching of different looks and styles that makes the corporation feel disjointed. Slapping the boxes on it isn't enough - The whole idea of the common logos and Gill Sans obsession was to make everything feel BBC. In 1999 you could take the logo off a piece of pres and it would still say BBC. Do that today and they could easily be from anywhere.

well actually, it was first animated block by block in the All New TOTP titles five years ago.

Yep - and the current BBC One presentation branding kit of parts includes lots of elements where the BBC logo exists as a 3D entity rather than 2D, and animates as three different blocks in 3D, not one. It breaks the original BBC branding guidelines - but time has moved on since then.

I think you've missed the point - it isn't an Arabic news channel, it is a BBC news channel in Arabic language - there is a major difference. The selling point is the BBC-ness of it. Personally I think a globe made up of lots of news images is quite a nice news branding device - suggesting both a global ambition and news images from around the globe. And as the brand is both a visual and auditory experience (the brand is not just the logo - it incorporates music, colours, architecture etc.) the music certainly says "Arabic News channel" to me.

I like the current BBC News 24/World countdown sequences - but I don't think they are as suitable for the Arabic channel - particularly as I suspect there aren't as many Arabic service reporters globally as English language - so doing the Beijing / India / Washington thing wouldn't be as feasible?


Though Gill Sans is a roman fount and doesn't exist in a form that can be used for Arabic script - so that is a moot point with BBC Arabic. To slap "Arabic" in Gill Sans on the channel would be pretty ridiculous.

This is the problem with the current BBC branding - it is very euro-centric in design - and doesn't cater as well for non-roman script - like Arabic, Farsi, Chinese, Japanese etc. where typography is very different.

As for Gill Sans as a pan-BBC fount - it was a nice theory - but it was developed when the BBC only had two domestic channels - and they were pretty similar in character. Now that the BBC has 8 domestic national TV services (BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four, BBC News 24, BBC Parliament, CBBC and CBeebies) the blandness of a pan-BBC fount becomes obvious. You can't brand BBC One, CBeebies and BBC Three in such a similar manner - they need to have their own character as well as a BBC character - and I think the 1997 Lambie Nairn brand was becoming too inflexible to reflect that.

Gill Sans also has problems in a Web 2.0 incarnation - as it is a less scalable fount, and in some type sizes can be very unclear (as well as not being a standard OS typeface, meaning graphic rendering is required which is not DDA compliant if you aren't careful)

Looking at the on-screen graphics, its nice they are different, but I am not sure I want these glass filled - non glass 3d block design for domestic...

http://www.rp-network.com/tvforum/uploads/ident.jpg http://www.rp-network.com/tvforum/uploads/headline.jpg
http://www.rp-network.com/tvforum/uploads/normalstrap.jpg http://www.rp-network.com/tvforum/uploads/full_report.jpg
http://www.rp-network.com/tvforum/uploads/namestrap.jpg http://www.rp-network.com/tvforum/uploads/photo_backing.jpg
http://www.rp-network.com/tvforum/uploads/whiteticker.jpg http://www.rp-network.com/tvforum/uploads/trail_1.jpg
http://www.rp-network.com/tvforum/uploads/weather.jpg http://www.rp-network.com/tvforum/uploads/trail_2.jpg

Top of the hour..


BBC Arabic TOTH

Nice to see BOTH studios and galleries being used today!

One has a large desk the other a much smaller desk, and they have a nice bright big screen as well. (Better resourced than BBC World and BBC News 24...)

Sorry if this has already been brought up.

But I clicked on the BBC Editors Blog ... BBC Editors Blog

And I read through and noticed this ...



Alas ...




The strength of the BBC is that it IS independent. I also expect that if the BBC became commerical they would be the first to complain.

That's quite strange to see!

It's all looking very nice indeed, and it's interesting seeing BBC branding on a completely different look for the news.

As for the person who was complaining about breaking branding guidelines...frankly they're living in the past. Noggin is absolutely right in saying that the BBC could and should not have kept the unified Gill Sans look forever. I think the animating BBC logo looks fantastic and adds a new, exciting dimension to a classic logo, which can only be a good thing. Rather that than change it, surely!?

This live stream in Windows Media Player just isn't working for me. There's audio, though it keeps cutting every 5 seconds, but the video just won't work! I'm having to use Real Player (ugh) for an actual picture!

Isn't it weird to see a BBC ticker going left to right?! And the weather graphics as well!

The fly through on this video http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/arabic/news/newsid_7289000/7289551.stm
looks quite similar to ITV's News at Ten. Does anybody else see that?

http://www.mikeafford.com/site/arabic.html

http://www.mikeafford.com/site/pics/gfx/arabic011.jpg http://www.mikeafford.com/site/pics/gfx/arabic010.jpg

also...

http://www.mikeafford.com/site/weather.html