If I were in charge of BBC One, I would bring back the balloons. The Oneness idents are pathetic and extremely lazy - it's just some footage of people doing something with BBC branding slapped on.
If I were in charge of BBC One, I would bring back the balloons. The Oneness idents are pathetic and extremely lazy - it's just some footage of people doing something with BBC branding slapped on.
Whilst you'd be hard-pushed to find anyone around here who wouldn't happily dance upon the graves of the Oneness idents, surely reviving some old branding from several revamps ago is far more truly "lazy" by definition?
The dire mess that BBC Two now is, with various rehashed old idents & pres, makes Oneness seem almost appealing by comparison. I'd rather have sodding Oneness continue until something genuinely totally new (and hopefully decent) can replace it, than it be dropped for mere refried beans.
The fact the BBC brought them back permanently shows they didn't think the Windows of the World concept worked. What is surprising though is how long they have stayed and the BBC have failed to come up with a new concept that can replace them. We will probably have the classic BBC 2 idents and Oneness for another year or two yet. (Please God, I hope it's not the case though!)
If they were going to revive some old idents I think Rhythm and Movement is more likely. Some of the latest additions to the Oneness package have looked like cheap rip offs of some of those idents.
The fact the BBC brought them back permanently shows they didn't think the Windows of the World concept worked. What is surprising though is how long they have stayed and the BBC have failed to come up with a new concept that can replace them. We will probably have the classic BBC 2 idents and Oneness for another year or two yet. (Please God, I hope it's not the case though!)
The "Window on the World" didn't get a chance. There was a lot of potential with the concept. The initial iterations merely scratched the surface. They simply didn't invest in the branding. Don't get me wrong - this does not mean that they did not spend money. They probably did - wasted on experimentation, on stuff that never made it to air. Or the hash of mess they introduced in 2009, which we're still stuck with. And we shouldn't necessarily always rush to the conclusion that the designers are to blame. Management (e.g., channel controllers) also perhaps had more influence than they should have on the creative process - and sometimes what ends up on air is in accordance with criteria they have insisted on.
What I find striking is that some of the BBC2 idents that were brought back (Swan, Woodpecker, et al) have now been in use for longer than they were the first time round! And as absolutely wonderful as the likes of Dog and Car are, I don't think any other channel in the world uses idents that are 25+ years old.
The fact the BBC brought them back permanently shows they didn't think the Windows of the World concept worked. What is surprising though is how long they have stayed and the BBC have failed to come up with a new concept that can replace them. We will probably have the classic BBC 2 idents and Oneness for another year or two yet. (Please God, I hope it's not the case though!)
The "Window on the World" didn't get a chance. There was a lot of potential with the concept. The initial iterations merely scratched the surface. They simply didn't invest in the branding. Don't get me wrong - this does not mean that they did not spend money. They probably did - wasted on experimentation, on stuff that never made it to air. Or the hash of mess they introduced in 2009, which we're still stuck with. And we shouldn't necessarily always rush to the conclusion that the designers are to blame. Management (e.g., channel controllers) also perhaps had more influence than they should have on the creative process - and sometimes what ends up on air is in accordance with criteria they have insisted on.
Oh, I wasn't implying the designers were to blame for it, just that a combination of the concept not being received well by viewers and seemingly also the BBC executives led to it being pulled probably years earlier than intended. I agree, it was a decent package and had a fair bit of potential but it wasn't really given a chance to expand and grow into a great package.
I always thought Window on the World was a much more restrictive concept than the solid 2s.
There's such a huge scope to make all kinds of random objects into a 2 shape. Window on the World, however, just relied on things you look through - stuff with holes in mainly - to make the 2 shape which does rather limit what they could use. I don't think it had a lot of scope to grow much more.
There's still that strange revamp they had which seemed to be limited to one modified ident we saw one morning then got scrapped. Who knows how that might have gone if we'd actually seen it?
There's still that strange revamp they had which seemed to be limited to one modified ident we saw one morning then got scrapped. Who knows how that might have gone if we'd actually seen it?
Badly!
In fact, some bits of the idents were briefly transmitted... after a fashion... as part of promos. Think swimming corkscrews and a worm coming out of an apple, and a creepy mime performance.
The multi-coloured promo endboards made it to air, but not with the almost impossible to read white text on cyan box logo or HUGE text (think current BBC One endboard huge, and then make it bigger).