BBC2 Personality ident - Robot 5 (2003)

Concept and creative process

This ident was created in the era of the BBC2 'Personality' idents (2001-2007), when the '2' became anthropomorphised and could 'grow' robot-like arms and hands and adopt a more proactive role in the animated scenarios. Every element of the ident was created and computer-animated in a 3D yellow environment, in which the ivory-coloured ‘2’ could adopt different anthropomorphic personalities. In addition, the BBC branding was altered and re-positioned, reversed out in white in a purple box at the bottom right of the screen, with the BBC boxes stacked on top of the word TWO. This style was applied shortly afterwards to the branding of the other BBC channels, creating a unified style for all BBC on-screen branding. In this Ident a ‘2’ moves into centre screen and produces a flame thrower. The background goes dark as it starts spraying flames all around, propelled backwards by the force and round and round in circles, throwing a conflagration of flames far and wide. It somersaults and begins to spray fire in a series of short bursts, one of which sets fire to the BBC TWO brand logo. The ‘2’ stops, apparently job done, retracts the flamethrower as the background reverts to yellow, and continues to observe the TWO logo in flames.