Does anyone else think that the arrangement of the graphics on the far wall of the Barcos looks really horrible and amateur? Having two images separated by a white line, and a plain white strip of text at the bottom. I think they should go for a single image/graphic that takes up half of the screen length on the Barcos. It's the same on the News Channel and on Breakfast, when a picture is displayed on the Barcos, and the edges cut off to display the rest of the backdrop. I prefer something à la Newsnight, where one image takes the whole length of the Barco, or where the edges of the image are faded.
Plus, I'm getting bored of the bland Gill Sans graphics used during reports. When quoting someone, or presenting statistics, I just wish they'd use another font to make items stand out more. Seeing Gill Sans is awfully dull.
As far as the News Channel goes, there is a need for being able to quickly put together graphics that broadly adhere to branding guidelines, and which in some cases need to be updated as new information comes in on a developing story.
Those requirements are far less prevalent in single-point bulletins than in rolling news; the Nationals and Newsnight are less bound by the need for that kind of flexibility, as in many cases the studio graphics are designed to be used only once (i.e those used for backdrops or for live in-studio presentations with a correspondent, often used for 'special reports' during the Six and Ten). For those sorts of graphics, there is typically a bit more time to work on design than is available to the rolling news team, and so there is, in theory, more room for creativity in how designs can be put together; whereas on the News Channel - and to some extent World News as well - there is often much less time (and fewer resources) available to put designs together, and so the graphics used must, by necessity, be relatively simple, and/or based around common themes that can be easily replicated across multiple reports.
The problem is that if you have one set of 'template'-type designs for the rolling news environment, and then provide much greater freedom of fonts and styles for the bulletin graphics, you create a disparity between the two. Often, packages from the bulletins are repeated on the News Channel, and News Channel reports are sometimes edited and repackaged for the bulletins. To remove the commonality that exists across all graphical elements would create something of a mess, reducing consistency and ultimately leading to a much less cohesive look across BBC News output.
I agree that some designs that appear on screen can be pretty bland and uninspired, but this is often a product of the very limited time available to put graphics together prior to broadcast, rather than being down to weak design choices or a restrictive selection of elements (such as fonts, for example).
But taking the last half-hour that I've been watching as an example, I've not found any particularly unpleasant examples of especially weak design, nor of the Gill Sans font contributing to any sense of dullness, though of course I accept that design is always a matter of personal taste.
That said, I think these two examples show that Gill Sans can work perfectly well; hardly mind-blowing, ground-breaking design, I grant you - but both quite pleasant to look at, in my opinion.
Crucially, and I think this is the most important element, is that although the designs are, in my view, aesthetically acceptable - even aesthetically pleasing in some ways - neither is hugely distracting; they do the job of drawing your attention to a point or a title, but they do not necessarily draw attention to the design itself.
Too often, when I hear calls for better design and more snazzy graphics and what-not, I fear that people forget that the whole point of the simplicity of the current BBC News design package is to ensure that the graphics do not distract one's attention from the actual news story. When the design becomes so eye-catching that it becomes distracting - I'm looking at you, Sky News - then the design is not fit for the purpose of improving one's understanding of the story without drawing one's attention away from it.
In my opinion, while the BBC News graphics aren't pushing the envelope in terms of pizazz and wow-factor, they're doing precisely the job that's required of them.
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