Saturday Superstore (1986)

Concept and creative process

‘Saturday Superstore’ was a children’s magazine programme packed full of music, star guests, phone-ins, cartoons and fun, which lasted for around 3 hours every Saturday morning. Designer John Salisbury recalls working on the opening titles for which he wanted to use the emerging 3D technology:
“This was at the very beginnings of 3D animation in the UK. I had been on a course at Middlesex Polytechnic run by Professor John Vince, who was doing research into building and animating objects which could then be printed onto paper using a plotter. This 3D logo was the result of building the logo and plotting it onto around 25 sheets of pegged layout paper which were then coloured using magic markers and filmed on a rostrum camera. The producer was unimpressed by my efforts and the overall title sequence was made by the production who shot the live action and edited it together. The flat 2D version of the logo was used in addition to the 3D version as it was part of the show’s overall marketing strategy to sell books etc, the graphic for which came from Marketing.