20 Years (1991-)

I think, the idents they dropped from 1991 to 2001 were at the right time...

> Crystal ball was going that way anyway.

> Shadow & Glass were very slow and reminiscent of the slowness of the eighties BBC2 idents.

> Silk, like the above, looked outdated before it was withdrawn - 31/12/99, but the music was more interesting than Shadow and Glass.

> Diary and Steam are more debatable - Diary seemed unsuitable for most idents.


My favourite was "Sign". Even that looked modern in 2001.

Crystal Ball was dropped very quickly because the "2" was unnoticable and it also looked similar to the BBC1 globe at the time. The BBC2 Balloon was dropped in 1997 because it apparently clashed with the incoming BBC One Balloon idents. I have no idea why Copper Cut Out (colour (dropped in 1999) and black and white (dropped in 1997) variations), Water (reflection variation dropped in 1997), Garden (dropped in 1997, although it came back in 2001) and Paper Cut Out (one of the first ones to be taken out of use, probably dropped in 1991 or 1993 I'm no sure) were all dropped.

Sorry I can't be more specific about this one, but IIRC it was soon concluded that in comparison to the other 10, 'Paper Cut Out' as an idea just "didn't work".

Someone should have told AMV BBDO... *groan*

I always thought it was silly because you could barely see the '2' as that is something that has become a trademark of the new Channel 4 idents. The biggest crime was dropping Silk. One of the absolute best and they withdrew it. Who decides which ones to withdraw? Stupid.

And now a blast from the past a little feature about how BBC2's new logo came to be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbpITaGT4-8

You know, at 0:50, Is that the contraption used for "Sign" in the background on top of the TV? I've always thought so...?

Yes that is definitely what they used for the Sign ident and the fluffy dog 2 is on the desk.

Sign? Which one was that?

I believe it is another name for "Neon." I've never called it "Sign," personally, and neither do LambieNairn by the looks of things...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKNnvawu8O4&feature=related

Yes you're right it's called Neon. Sometimes when people don't know the real names, they come up with their own that describe it. One thing about all of those original idents is that they all have a green/blue colour. I'm glad that they moved away from sticking to that colour palette and varied it.

Actually, I think that diluted the set a bit much. I prefer the original set of idents.

Moving away from the green/blue look on the idents was a good thing as good as they looked they felt very early 1990s. But on the slides the green/blue did work, it looked dull when the slides changed to plain black in 1993 or so, where as BBC1 kept theirs.