Sky News Graphics - they CAN do them after all

Just got back to England yesterday and have been watching a bit of Sky News, and I noticed that their graphics for the jubilee (on the newswall, update etc) are actually pretty nice. Which just goes to prove that the sky news graphics department ARE capable of making some nice graphics when they want to!

Admittedly, I can't say the same for the world cup graphics - those 'BREAKING NEWS' things with the naff spinning world cup are ridiculously excessive. And the newswall graphic is a bit cheap-looking too. But still, the fact that the jubillee ones look OK just goes to show that, if they put a bit more effort in more often, the channel would look really good.

PS - I was watching Fox News and it looks like their graphics are actually SMALLER than the last time I saw them. You don't see that happen very often...

Welcome back from sunny France. I've missed you, even if no-one else has.

Their jubilee graphics do look good, brilliant actually. They have adapted their little "Latest Details" template so there is a nice jubilee background and gold colours, looks really impressive. I actually quite like the world cup thing, the best one is the massive three lions flag they put up flapping on the newswall, looks enormous.

To be honest, I'd very much like them to start again, although there doesn't seem to be much hope of that happening. I don't see why they can't just spruce up the graphics, though. It wouldn't take a lot to put their spinning globe into the blue section of the straps and to make the red section a bit shiny and easier on the eye. They could just make their graphics have a little bit of shading and tonal changes on them to make them look a bit 3D-ish rather than totally flat.

Glad someone's missed me!

I have to say you've taken the words right out of my mouth - and I've actually recently put together some mocks very similar to what you described but I haven't yet uploaded them.

I think we have to live with the red/blue colour scheme - sky are obviously very proud of it, as it's now spread to Sky Sports! But it would be SO easy for them just to make the astons etc look better.

I haven't seen the 3 lions flag yet - just the spinning cup with those blue lines flying all over the place. Sounds good though.

Sky could do what MSNBC did with their graphics.

When MSNBC (god, I hate that name) relaunched a few months ago, their straps were really flat and the text just plain black/white. Now, however, since their little "America's Newschannel" rebrand, they have kept the format of their graphics but appear to have made them much more shiny, the text is metallic and it just looks so much better.

They seem to be able to pull together graphics for their newswall really quickly and they have designed special designs on numerous occasions now. I just don't see why they can't make them look a little more professionally done rather than MS Paint inspired attempts.

They might look a lot better if they went widescreen...