Doctor Who (1980)

Concept and creative process

The titles for ‘Doctor Who’ designed by Bernard Lodge had achieved an iconic status and were a hard act to follow.

"I needed to maintain continuity of the theme of ‘time travel’ and introduce a new version of Tom Baker’s face to the viewers. I wanted to include the ‘space’ element, not just ‘time’ and I wanted to suggest that here was an alien who had come from out there among the stars. So I combined the two thoughts and had the stars build the head of the Doctor as we travel through the galaxy. In the second version in 1982 for Peter Davison’s Doctor, I introduced new elements forming the head when shooting the sequence. In the third version in 1984 for Colin Baker’s Doctor, several new layers and effects were added, with additional animation to re-inforce the ‘time tunnel’ theme, a new animation to introduce the logo and numerous additional stars and colours to reflect the new Doctor’s fun personality."