Concept and creative process
For the 1990 BBC Two Autumn campaign a number of different ideas were explored to make the Two logo appear less “worthy and dull”, which is how it had come to be perceived by some. Channel controller Alan Yentob commissioned an audience survey from the independent branding consultant Martin Lambie-Nairn, and after Lambie-Nairn won the pitch to redesign the branding for the channel, a new strategy was finally implemented in 1991. In the meantime, designers sought ways and means to refresh the Two and created new scenarios around the three letters and the colours of the existing logo. In the ident ‘Paper’, the camera crabs around a parcel wrapped in newspaper and string, inside which something is struggling to get out. The camera moves in closer and then cranes up to a high-angle as the parcel unwraps itself by stop-frame animation. What is revealed is the right-hand half of the stencil ‘O’ from the BBC Two logo, resplendent in a mother of pearl finish. The left-hand half of the letterform mixes in to complete the ’O’. All of the stop-frame animation was shot in-camera.