The Olympic Broadcaster.

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The BBC broadcast the full length trailer for the London 2012 Olympics last night on BBC One. The campaign shows the landscape of the United Kingdom transformed into a giant sporting arena, with music written and performed by Elbow.

Creative agency Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe Y&R developed the concept and the animation was created by Passion Pictures and produced by Red Bee Media.

Continuing a tradition of animated promos, check out previous Olympics trailers for Vancouver 2010 and Beijing 2008.

Albert’s Speech

An epic adventure in the world of the best man as seen from the inside out.

A day in the life of British news.

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The way a network presents its news, both visually and editorially says a lot about the channel. For the sake of comparison lets look at how ITV, BBC, Sky and Channel 4 covered today’s Ash-attack.

I’ll avoid making comment on the various broadcasters editorial skills, but to summarise the look and feel of each news bulletin:

– The BBC is the straightest, clean lines, serious look.
– Channel 4 is the edgiest, feels a touch alternative.
– ITV is the glossiest, very shiny, little to CGI heavy.
– And Sky News is by far the least interesting.

For some historical perspective, check out my 2007 edition of this exact same post.

With the launch of ABC News 24 getting close, I look forward to seeing how the ABC takes on the task of branding a whole news channel. Hopefully nothing like Sky.

The black and white Olympics.

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Going against all tradition and cliche, the BBC have created one hell of a Winter Olympics promo. No blue ice, no slow motion athletes, and no gold medals.

It’s the Persepolis of Winter Olympics promos and I love it.

Be more with PBS.

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Continuing my series of blatant bias towards public broadcasters, and blind rage towards commercial networks.. I present you with the new look for PBS.

Although funded differently to the BBC or the ABC, the Public Broadcasting Service of the United States shares a similar mission to “educate, inspire, entertain”. Like other public broadcasters around the world it is also considered its nations “most trusted national institution”.

But enough about the philosophy, what about the brand. Created by Eyeball, the new look is distinctively non-commercial, yet polished, two qualities sometimes considered mutually exclusively, but beautifully executed here.

Sidenote: Carrier is one of the best documentary series I’ve ever seen.

BBC Alba, always looking towards the Pole Star.

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Glasgow based agency Design is Central recently created this series of sublime idents for the new Scottish Gaelic language channel BBC Alba.

The look of the idents are based around the Pole Star, and the idea of an attraction and movement towards it. A concept which is slightly reminiscent of that used by Welsh broadcaster S4/C, is still nonetheless beautifully executed.

Complimenting the idents are a series of menu boards after the jump.

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One day like this, on the BBC.

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Ninety second promo for the BBC’s latest batch of new drama. Featuring the likes of Survivors, Little Dorrit, Spooks, Einstein and Eddington, Consuming Passion, Apparitions, Wallander and In Love with Barbara.

All set to the Elbow’s tune “One Day Like This”.

Everybody was Kung Fu fighting, on the BBC.

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Here’s a challenge for you: condense a 400-year-old, 100 chapter Chinese novel into a two minute animated trailer for the upcoming Beijing Olympics.

Actually, don’t worry, the BBC have already done it…

That’s right, they’ve abandoned the traditional “gold-infused slow-motion footage of athletes” Olympics imagery in favour of something a bit more creative.

Animated by Gorillaz creator Jamie Hewlett with music by Damon Albarn, this video of Monkey and his friends made its debut last night in the UK at 7:27pm with a simulcast across BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four and BBC News, and will form the centrepiece of the BBC’s Olympic coverage branding.