The BBC hasn't had a design update for over 20 years.
Having grown organically over decades, it was made up of a different system for each Channel or Service. It was therefore a huge undertaking to address this and involved a large number of stakeholders.
Wolff Olins in collaboration with BBC Creative, BBC UX&D and the BBC Brand Team were tasked with creating a uniform system that would work across all Curators and Services, for On-Air, Print and Digital spaces. The new uniform system would also need the flexibility to foreground individual brand personalities, of which the BBC has a large number.
Our project also created opportunities to make other changes, such as shifting the focus from linear to on-demand services, such as iPlayer, Sounds and Bitesize.
As part of the BBC Core Brand team that was assembled for the Broadcast element of the BBC Brand Refresh project, my focus was primarily on Navigation.
I developed Navigation items across a very large number of Curators and Services, eventually delivering these to Playout and other users, such as The Nations.
This work involved the development and testing of the 'Ambients', building the Navigation items themselves, devising text grids and implementing the Christmas campaigns.
Wolff Olins
Creative Director:
Steffan Cummins
Senior Motion Designer:
Laurence Mencé
Senior Designer:
Harry Boyd
Connor Dickson
Iossie Ng Lei
James McNaught
BBC Creative
Lead Producer:
Ken Rodrigues
Senior Producer:
Louise Braham
Graphics Producer:
Sarah White
Graphics Project Manager:
Brendan Barry
Senior Account Manager:
Pip Russell
Head of Design:
Laurence Honderick
Design Director:
Amy Johnson
Central Brand Consultant:
Baiba Grase
Senior Designer:
Josh Moore
Amir Saidani
Mirjami Qin
Nino Vrana
Core Brand Motion Designers:
Salesi Morris
Andrea Stragapede
Ed Linfoot
Following extensive research and development by ‘Visual Journalism’, this Refresh involved unifying the BBC News output across all media. An audit of BBC News and BBC World News branded content was carried out and branded items were redesigned with simplified colour palette, layout and motion. 'Reith' was rolled out as the BBC News font.
I designed and made animated stings for 'Follow Us and 'Ways to Watch'.
'Ways to Watch' needed to use existing GEL icons. A carousel mechanism was developed so that 'Ways to Watch' could also be applied as an animated bug across endboards. I also templated 'Global Digital' and 'Product Ad' web banners.
Everything was pulled together for the Brand Guidelines for BBC News Channel and BBC World News.
Creative Director: Laurent Simon
Design Director: Nino Vrana
Concept, Design and Animation: Luke Carpenter, Ed Linfoot, Nino Vrana
Producer: Sophia Pendar-Hughes
Production Manager: Liz Timms
The BBC Children's channels were given an overhaul to align them with the other BBC Curators and Services. In terms of Broadcast, this meant, among other things, new Idents, Bumpers and revamped Navigation items.
CBBC and CBeebies logos were brought into the same language as the other Channel logos, making them better optimised for online.
Customised rounded versions of the Reith font have been created to further synchronise with the wider BBC Brand Refresh.
Wolff Olins worked in collaboration with BBC Creative, BBC UX&D and the BBC Brand Team in developing the BBC Brand Refresh system.
My role for this project was primarily to develop and deliver the Navigation items to air.
Because of the specific needs of Children's presentation, we developed additional items, such as Character IPP and DVEs, 'New' IPPs and 'Days to Go' dogs.
Branding Agency:
Wolff Olins
BBC Creative
Lead Producer:
Ken Rodrigues
Senior Producer:
Louise Braham
Graphics Producer:
Shaun Adamson
Dan Robinson
Graphics Project Manager:
Brendan Barry
Head of Design:
Laurence Honderick
Central Brand Consultant:
Baiba Grase
Design Director:
Amy Johnson & Ian Wormleighton
Victoria Stout
Motion Designers:
Salesi Morris
Andrea Stragapede
Ed Linfoot
The rebranding of BBC Local Radio involved theming all stations collectively, whilst also allowing flex for stations to own individual characteristics. This was achieved by featuring key letters from each station name.
Given the number of Local Radio stations - 50, this involved creating a huge number of print and social templates.
I was part of the team versioning templates in addition to creating the Brand Guidelines.
Producer: Sophia Pendar Hughes
Production Manager: Liz Timms
Design Director: Nino Vrana
Senior Designer: Veronica Law
Designers:
Colin Dodson
Nick Hague
Ed Linfoot
Rich Sutton
The BBC Two Rebrand is built around a diverse range of Idents which reflect the breadth of content on the channel.
Idents are placed at the centre of the brand with one 46" deliverable for each Ident which is cut down to populate all of the OSP.
Match cuts at regular intervals and carefully considered junctions ensure seamless edits between different 'Moods' on-air.
I prepared the files for delivery, testing WIPs to ensure correct behaviour when placed in junctions and cut with other Idents. Then I put everything together in a Brand Guideline document.
Branding Agency: BBC Creative / Superunion
Executive Creative Director: Laurent Simon, Stuart Radford
Creative Director: Susan Ayton, Katherina Tudball
Producer: Georgina Mavrommatis, Ken Rodrigues
Production Coordinator: Dan Robinson, Emma Hamilton
Editor: Thomas Walker
Head of Design: Laurence Honderick
Senior Designer: Josh Moore
Designer: Erik Brattested, Ed Linfoot
I worked as a Designer/Animator on the Channel 5 family Rebrand - Channel 5, 5Star and 5USA.
My particular focus was on On Screen Presentation (OSP).
I oversaw the OSP build for automation and documented the Rebrands in the form of Style Guides.
Producing these documents helped define branding rules and meant we were well placed to ensure future consistency.
US Creative Agencies: Troika and Gretel
Channel 5 Creative Executive: Jo Bacon
Creative Director: Jody Malam
Art Director: Dene Smith
Designer/Animator: James Wignall
Designer/Animator: Ed Linfoot
I worked on a launch event for the season's Formula 1 racing car. This involved making looping motion video content featuring drivers Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris. McLaren Formula 1 is rebranded for every season, and all elements of the launch event reflected the brand.
Lead Designer: Matt Gunningham
Designer/Animator: Ed Linfoot
10" Bumper and 40" Promo for Channel 5
For the promo, I made a map sequence illustrating the progress and ferocity of The Great Fire. Both the promo and bumper feature themed end pages.
Producer: Maxwell Wright
Art Director: Dene Smith
Autodesk Flame: Glenn Carr
Designer/Animator: Ed Linfoot
This role within Sky as part of the NOW TV Design team was to make promos for both On-Air and Social.
That meant creating promo specific animations which complimented the script and edit whilst living within the brand.
This sometimes consisted of typographic animations.
International Women's Day
Producer: Adriana Monagas
Lead Designer: Catherine Hutton
Designer/Animator: Ed Linfoot
I worked as a Designer/Animator on the Spike UK Launch. This was the first launch for the channel outside of the US.
My particular focus was on On Screen Presentation (OSP).
I worked on the OSP build for automation - adapting OSP items and creating new ones tailored to the needs of the UK channel. For example, expanding functionality to be able to cross promote to the Viacom family of channels.
I documented this in the form of Style Guides.
Producing the Style Guide helped define branding rules and meant we were well placed to ensure future consistency.
US Creative Agency: Juniper Jones
UK Creative Director: Rich Thrift
UK Art Director: Dene Smith
Designer/Animator: James Parsons
Designer/Animator: Ed Linfoot
Anthropology of This Century, (AOTC) is an online journal of Anthropology with a global readership, featuring articles written by top academics. My brief was to create a logo and website to be reskinned for each issue. The aim was to make AOTC stand out from the competition by giving each issue a different strong visual theme.
After 20 issues, this specialist website attracts 20,000 readers per issue in over 100 countries.
Custom Wordpress Theme: Steve Taylor
Art Direction, Design & Illustration:
Ed Linfoot
Anthropology of This Century, (AOTC) is an online journal of Anthropology with a global readership, featuring articles written by top academics. My brief was to create a logo and website to be reskinned for each issue. The aim was to make AOTC stand out from the competition by giving each issue a different strong visual theme.
This animation is made from loopable GIFs - something we plan to feature on future home pages.
After 22 issues, this specialist website attracts 20,000 readers per issue in over 100 countries.
Custom Wordpress Theme: Steve Taylor
Art Direction, Design & Illustration:
Ed Linfoot
A conscious decision was taken to use as much illustration as possible to accompany articles in this online journal.
A selection of alternative designs for print ads for Ben Fogle and Borderline. Some examples are more brand dominant and some are more programme dominant. These all sit within the Channel 5 Rebrand Guidelines.
Art Director: Dene Smith
Designer Ed Linfoot
Role: Designer
JLL Residential Prediction Tape
Residential prediction animation featuring six regional centers. Local experts outline factors attracting future growth.
Creative Director: Rich Thrift
Brand Design: James Wignall
Brand Design: Andrea Stragapede
Designer/Animator: Ed Linfoot
Role: Designer/Illustrator
Milkshake! projects have given me the opportunity to work in an illustrative style which I've enjoyed!
Projects have ranged from overlayed animations supporting dance routines, to animated Advent Calendars and Milkshake! opening title sequences.
Initial ideas and final logo delivery for The German Pinscher Club Logo.
The final logo features stylised, but accurate, representations of the 2 breed standard colours - tan and black/tan.
