BBC One Christmas Ident

Or the penguins, they were cool!

One word to describe the new Christmas idents: 'Spartan'!

Well the trails have been really good over last week or so but the Ident not so. I do wonder if there is more to come? This is only the start? They did say they made 7 Idents and so far we only seen 3. We live in hope the BBC will surprises us!

Looking at the Idents on those links listed I would say the snowflake is the news Ident. I am guessing this for the only reason that there is no music on the Ident only the sparkle noise (whatever you call that).

I think the showtime theme is good and is in a right place of the year as christmas is one of the most watched points in the TV calendar, But I do feel the main show this year has been the olympics so it feels odd to me. I wonder what the BBC One will make of this 'Love 2013' theme for next year. Will it be connected to the christmas branding in anyway? Like in style?

Just to note CBBC launched their christmas Idents at 5:30pm today. Same as last year.

Wasn't a fan of the Penguins, seemed more like a Winter ident than a Christmas one, as evidenced by its reuse later on without the 'bauble tree' in the middle.

An ident with no sound? really? is it 1996 again or what?

Very odd News ident. The glissando seems slightly inappropriate when introducing the news. Other than that yes it's very silent!

Shockingly bad, for BBC's standard.

Couldn't they just use last year's theme again, it was colorful, big and had nice Christmas music, everything these so called idents lack.

It certainly looks that way... Chris makes a similar comment on Page 2 which puts it quite well.

Many years previously, the ident would be at the heart of Christmas pres. It was often about the build-up to the symbol reveal, yet still with equally nice, festive graphic design across the board. But this year is the closest yet to the opposite of that.

The idents seem secondary to the Showtime promos. And I stand by my earlier observation that the promos remind me more of an old BBC License Fee / Corporate ad full of famous faces, than they do of Christmas. Minus some small elements, they could indeed be used at any time of year.

On the plus side, I should say these promos are actually great in themselves, and perhaps the highlight of this 'pres' thus far.

But I hesitate to use the term... I'm not encouraged by the apparent heavy marketing tilt this year toward really pushing the promotional side, at the expense of the actual presentation design. A push that includes the part played by The One Show this evening - which, with its focus on the BBC 1 Christmas schedule and then the light projection, honestly came across as an unashamed half-hour promo - perhaps as GavBelfast said, too self-indulgent.

The snowflake on BBC One's website was used into the 10pm news. They also used a version of the snowflake with music at 9pm.

On my TV the snowflake didn't introduce the news. It was just BBC One with a silent swirl after the initial sparkly sound.

Oh dear. Well, that's it folks, all the money was spent on this year's Olympics.

After being out all evening, I've loaded up the computer to come here & check the offerings from BBC One. Maybe I shouldn't have bothered.

It's wrong. The music is wrong, the curtain falling (falling?!) is wrong, the animations look half-hearted. It's like inverse 2011, which ventured too far the other way with its scattergun festive cheese (but at least it felt Christmassy; these are totally devoid of charm).

As said, 2010 looks to have been the peak and certainly runs rings around this.