The BBC Coat of Arms

There was a time when we were greeted by the wonderful BBC coat of arms at the start of the news. It did also occasionally appear on other TV shows. But what shows did it feature on and when did it stop actually being used on screen and in print to promote the corporation and why?

It's a lovely piece of artwork and with some modern graphic design touches and some basic recolouring could work well these days.

because its really old fashioned

I haven't seen coats of arms on anything as of late, though I understand a lot of councils still have them (officially), but only turn up when you Google them, and even then not on official websites. Might appear on their Wiki pages but that's about it.

But yes, its an old-fashioned idea that Jacob Rees-Mogg would probably champion given half a chance, so they've all but vanished.

There are some beautiful examples of modern, clean-looking coat of arms that work wonderfully well as part of brand identities that have been carefully considered. E.g. https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/?s=%22coat+of+arms%22

But take a look at those brands – what kind of companies are they, and what kind of tone do their brands have?

I do sometimes wonder if maybe the BBC should embrace their heritage more in their aesthetic. Bringing back the coat of arms might be taking it too far, but I think the bats' wings could work wonderfully. They'd contrast quite strikingly with anything the other channels are doing, and there's so much you could do with them in terms of lighting effects...

Then again, there would be a wrong way of doing it that went too far and did look a bit silly and old-fashioned. It's only worth doing if you can modernise it somehow, and the bats' wings would be more flexible than the coat of arms... (also more futurist in their aesthetic than the coat)

I don't think that the BBC is that much interested in its past.

They (well, Martin Lambie-Nairn) did a creative thing with their coat of arms in the 80s - they took one element of it and used it for the news and it was a bit controversial

What makes you think that?

Care to elaborate?

No - BBC aren't interested in the past at all.

They only spent hundreds of millions referbing the original headquaters to be a tri-media broadcast centre, when they could have gone and hired 8 floors of a generic glass and steel construction somewhere in Southwark.

And the archive site of the BBC website is pointless and Genome is useless as a valuable and historical resource of what it broadcast down the decades.

Yep, not at all bothered about the past.

It doesn't really align with their current values, it used to be a bit Empire ish.

Well realistically nobody's current values align with what they did in the past. That's "growing up" for you and its how times change. If we all stuck with how we behaved and did things in the past then (amongst other things) we wouldn't have colour TV, internet and we'd still be driving Ford Cortinas.