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