Concept and creative process
NODD (Nexus Orthicon Display Device) universally known as NODDY by the BBC, was the mechanical means by which TV channel idents were displayed on-air from 1963-1985. The mechanism, after Sid Sutton's 1969 redesign, consisted of an externally-lit globe with the land masses painted white and the oceans matt black, rotating in front of a concave mirror. The NODDY device was cued and controlled remotely from the Presentation Studio gallery by the Continuity Announcer. The camera was originally monochrome and in 1967, with the introduction of colour television, an electronic process had been added to colourise the camera's output. This second variation on the Mirrored Globe design was introduced in 1972. It had the same colour blue on black as its predecessor but with a modified BBC1 COLOUR logo. The BBC logo was reversed out of matching slanted boxes, now with rounded corners, and the word ‘COLOUR’ was set completely in a roman seriffed italic font. This version was replaced in 1974.