Monitor (1964)

Concept and creative process

Opening titles for ‘Monitor’, BBC's flagship arts programme of the 1950s and 1960s. Pat Thompson had the idea of illustrating the rather busy jazz soundtrack with a ball bearing the logo she had designed for the programme, literally bouncing off the edges of the screen. The first ball is joined by a second and then a third, creating an ever more frenetic choreography of collisions and near misses. Finally, the three balls become two again and then one in close up before the logo zooms to fill screen.