BBC Two Relaunch in November

I completely agree that the BBC's 1997 rebrand was excellent in all aspects. I agree that when it comes to things like this, it is difficult to beat the BBC's design sense.

But I don't think you can have SOLID standardisation ALL the time for eternity. As long as there is a certain amount of standardisation across the board you're OK, but with everything the same it just gets tedious.

What I am saying is that if this new type of design (right alignment in trailers and idents) is adopted across the board and not just on BBC TWO, we could see another successful development of the BBC's image. But if it just appears on BBC TWO, it would not be successful.

So why do you say you don't agree if you do?

Just with the bit that the BBC would make a hash of it, although I understand it was only a lighthearted comment!

However I really think that right aligning the logotype on trailers, idents, and presumably slides and menus as well, is inferior to the current style.  If it's centered, it doesn't matter whether what you're watching is in 4:3, 14:9, 16:9 or whatever, it's still centered.  Aligning to one side, as most other channels do, leads to a less consistent look in different aspect ratios.

And having the logo centered at the bottom means it can stay in the same place on all trailers, menus, slides and idents.  This is what I call clever and thoughtful design.

And if it was good for 1997, why shouldn't it be good for 2001 as well? Going back to the original point of this thread, I believe the BBC2 idents ought to remain as current because they are still good, and should not be replaced just because they've been around a long time. Age should not need to be an issue.

It's just change for the sake of change.  It's less consistent, and aside from all that, I just think the current style looks much better!


(Edited by RW at 9:08 pm on Nov. 4, 2001)

I suppose they are trying to add a bit of variety.

Although, I wonder if the logo will remain right aligned for menus and other captions like apology captions. If this did happen, the other text would not be centre-aligned as it would look a mess. So it would have to be left- or right-aligned... which would also be a mess!

Let's just hope they have REALLY thought about this one!

the right alignment can work, i hope those trailers turn to gill sans
and a gap is left above the logo

slightly off-topic, but i thought id stick it here anyway.
i remember ages ago someone saying they'd seen a static bbc one ident- and it turned out that there is a backup image that appears when the proper ident doesnt... well at 00:59 on 09/11/01 on BBC Two, instead of the usual learning zone ident they showed the bbc 2 still whilst the prerecorded voice over went out as normal:
http://www.tvhome.f2s.com/ikonboard/upload/bbc2-backupidentimage.jpg
(notice no URL?)
i only mentioned it as ive never seen the backup still ident before.

How intresting,a still ident, havn't seen that before, and no URL, maybe '2' were using this approach in early 2000 when that ident first came in, however excalibur was one of the new six added in Jan 2000 which already had the URL on it anyway, so **** knows what's goin on, i'm keepin my eye on 2 over the next weekm or so!

I don't think the URLs are actually 'on' the idents as such, but are in fact overlaid during normal continuity, and not during special periods eg. the LZ. Therefore it's quite possible for Excalibur and the other new idents to appear without URLs. Alternatively, if this is not the case, maybe two versions were produced - one with, one without...

I don't think that is the case that the URL is added separately, as it took six months for it to appear on all the pre-2000 idents - and they forgot to do the clock and the Dalek ident, so whenever they are seen they are without the URL.

I would imagine the still images had been produced before the decision was taken to add the URL to idents, and it wasn't worth changing them since they will almost never be seen.

And I always thought the water was on the right hand side...

I'm cold.

Right, now that's cleared up, are the BBC going to change that exceptionally tacky thing with BBC choise and the top corner bix.

Yuck spit spit

I hope that the Beeb do change all the trailer texts if they change. It would look daft to have different ones

No, the URL was added in an edit suite to make a new version and then they replaced the previous ones.

It would be far too difficult and pointless to add live as they appear at the same time as the rest of the graphics, and some are black and some are white.

Until it closed the old analogue area used to superimpose the 888 or subtitles graphic; it used to be on screen for the whole ident. now there are 2 versions of each, one with 'Subtitles' and one without. The graphic fades in in time with the bottom graphics

Yeah, between 1991 and 1997 the BBC logo was on the '2' idents right from the start, but know it appears after the main action or just a few seconds. I only noticed this a few weeks ago, when I was watching the original version of Powder and saw from the start that the BBC logo was already there, I hadn't picked up on this before! The first picture is Powder from 1991-1997 and the second pic is from 1997-Current!
http://www.tvhome.f2s.com/ikonboard/upload/01-powder-b.jpg
http://www.tvhome.f2s.com/ikonboard/upload/01-powder-b2.jpg

Just a niggling thing but you wouldn't mind mentioning where you got that image from in your post? I know we can probably guess but it's just out of politeness to the webmaster.

Cheers, Asa