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The "Virtual Globe" was the method of creating the BBC1 symbol that was used between 16 February 1991 and 4 October 1997.
| The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline .(March 2012) |
The "Virtual Globe" was the method of creating the BBC1 symbol that was used between 16 February 1991 and 4 October 1997.
The Virtual Globe replaced the COW on 16 February 1991 and was designed by Martin Lambie-Nairn, owner of the Lambie-Nairn design agency. [1] The first aspects of the look were first witnessed at 6 am, when the updated Open University symbol first aired, showing the stylised '1'. This was followed at 8 am by the new clock that accompanied the look, introducing a news bulletin. The first time the ident itself aired was at 9 am, when it introduced Going Live! , the Saturday morning magazine show on Children's BBC, where the ident itself was "unveiled" by presenters Phillip Schofield and Sarah Greene. [2]
The ident consisted of a figure "1" inside a rotating transparent globe surrounded by a swirling smoky atmosphere above the BBC's corporate logo: the bold italic letters B B C within three rhomboids, above blue red and green flashes. The idents were created by filming a physical globe, but used CGI effects to give it its smokey look. The ident had no soundtrack and was played off a Sony Laserdisc implementation, Sony CRVdisc. [3] Upon first impressions, the ident does not appear like a globe, as the smoky CGI effects hide and disfigure the continents. However, land masses can be seen in the globe and their shadows can be seen on the background of the ident. [2]
A clock accompanied the look, which used GNAT (Generator of Network Analogue Time), resulting in the clock mimicking the movement of an analogue clock by moving the minute hand every second, rather than every 15 seconds as was found on previous station clocks. The counters on the clocks alternated between dots and dashes pointing towards the centre, a smoky static background and included the BBC logo at the bottom of the screen, although no on screen reference to the channel being BBC1. The clock was originally large to fit the screen best, however the size contrast between the clock and the globe resulted in difficulty at closedown, as the two do not fade easily. This issue was resolved in December 1991, when the clock was shrunk down to the same as the globe, easing fading between. The background was also altered to a ripple effect, yet retaining the smoky feel.
The look also featured an updated style of captions and promotions. Promotions featured the '1' above a BBC logo in the top left of the screen, with the end screen of promotions featuring the programme name at the bottom of the screen. Captions were similar, being formed of a sidebar with the '1' and BBC logo in top left corner with the background of the sidebar featuring a smoky background similar to the ident. [4]
| Title | Air dates | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Virtual Moon | Christmas 1991 | Similar to the normal ident but the figure '1' is inside a rotating, icy coloured moon, with Father Christmas in his sleigh flying around it. When it introduced the film Batman , the bat symbol was superimposed on top. It was accompanied by a simple four note fanfare. |
| Toy | Christmas 1992 | A shining figure '1' is at the bottom of a Christmas tree surrounded by various bouncing and moving toys. A photograph of HM The Queen was used at closedown because the BBC deemed the ident "too jolly" to be used against the National Anthem. |
| North Pole | Christmas 1993 | An icy figure '1' is in a snowy landscape, with two polar bears and Father Christmas in his sleigh flying above it, which the bears watch. There are two versions, one in day-time and one in night-time. |
| Christmas Present | Christmas 1994 | The figure '1' is a Christmas present with a snowman either side of tipping their hats. This ident was unusual in that it had three different variations. In the run up to and on Christmas Eve it was neatly wrapped, on Christmas Day it was unwrapped by the snowmen to reveal a shining gold numeral and on Boxing Day and onwards the wrapping remains had been removed to display the gold numeral '1'. The Christmas Day version was occasionally used on and after Boxing Day. Normal idents were used for closedown. |
| Star | Christmas 1995 | The figure '1' is on top of a Christmas tree in place of a star, with starry glitter surrounding it and a toy plane flying around it. In addition, a variation was made without the plane, which was used at closedown. |
| Gift Box | Christmas 1996 | A circular box is opened by two toys to reveal a gold figure '1' inside. A version without the toy figures was used for Closedown and introduction into serious programming, should the need arise. |
The ident set was replaced following a detailed look at the corporate identity. Lambie Nairn, who carried out the investigation found that the current slanted logo did not work on screen well, and therefore suggested replacing it with a new logo featuring straightened boxes. The development of this new logo made the old one, still in use on the idents, redundant. Also, as part of this rethink, Lambie Nairn recommended using the BBC logo, with the service name after, instead of unique logos and numerals for each service, as this weakened the core brand. As a result, he suggested that the identity be changed, with personality added through the ident subject rather than a logo. He therefore developed the idea of a hot-air balloon as the new idents. They went into service on 4 October 1997.
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The BBC One "Rhythm & Movement" idents were a set of on-screen channel identities designed by Lambie-Nairn and used on BBC One from 29 March 2002 to 7 October 2006. They replaced the balloon idents, and spelled the end of the much recognised globe identity by the BBC, which had been used in various ways since 1963.
The Noddy was a camera system used for generating idents for the BBC One and BBC Two television channels from late 1963 to February 1985.
The history of BBC television idents begins in the early 1950s when the BBC first displayed a logo between programmes to identify its service. As new technology has become available, these devices have evolved from simple still black and white images to the sophisticated full colour short films seen today. With the arrival of digital services in the United Kingdom, and with them many more new channels, branding is perceived by broadcasters to be much more important, meaning that idents need to stand out from the competition.
The Computer Originated World (COW) was the method of creating the BBC1 symbol that was used between 18 February 1985 and 16 February 1991. It was later used by the international, commercial television service BBC World Service Television from its launch until 26 January 1995.
The BBC One "Circle" idents were a set of on-screen channel identities used on BBC One from 7 October 2006 to 4 December 2016. They also featured on the BBC Studios channel, BBC America. The idents contained images of circles being formed by nature, or people and their actions. This was the longest set of idents that was used by BBC One, as they lasted for 10 years.
The BBC Two 1991–2001 idents were broadcast from 16 February 1991 until 19 November 2001, and again from 9 July 2014 until 26 September 2018, on BBC Two in the United Kingdom. The idents, which consisted of a sans-serif '2' in Gill Sans, accompanied by the colour viridian, were created by branding agency Lambie-Nairn, who also created the Channel 4 logo.
Martin John Lambie-Nairn was an English designer. He was the founder of his branding agency Lambie-Nairn and was the creative director of branding agency ML-N. He is recognised for having redefined television brand identity design, being the first to embrace computer technologies to apply branding to screen-based media.
The logo of the BBC has been a brand identity for the corporation and its work since the 1950s in a variety of designs. Until the introduction of a logo in 1958, the corporation had relied on its coat of arms for official documentation and correspondence, although it rarely appeared onscreen. With the increased role of television for the BBC in the 1960s, particularly after the foundation of the ITV network, the corporation used its logo to increase viewer familiarity and to standardise its image and content. The logo has since been redesigned a number of times, most recently in 2021 with the BBC blocks, a logo designed to work across media. From 1958, there have been six different BBC logos. The first logo of the network was used from 1958 to 1963, the second from 1963 to 1971, the third from 1971 to 1992, the fourth from 1988 to 1997, the fifth from 1997 to 2021, while the sixth and current logo was adopted in October 2021.
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The Computer Generated 2 was an ident used by BBC2 between 16 June 1979 and 30 March 1986. It was the first computer generated television station identification in the world.
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The presentation and the identities of the BBC News channel in the UK alongside its international counterpart and the BBC Parliament coverage channel use specific identities that demonstrate their remit and purpose.
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