You spin me right round, BBC

The new BBC1 idents have finally been unveiled, and it looks as though they might be quite good (compared to the last set anyway).

Following in the footsteps of the famous globe, the red balloon and the “ethnic” dancers, design agency Red Bee Media has concocted a series of idents, of which there will ultimately be 16. The red colour scheme has been retained but a new lower-case typeface has been created, a move away from the current uniform use of Gill Sans by the BBC.

It appears that the lead has been taken from the BBC4 idents which use everyday backgrounds with overlaid text, although each of the new BBC1 efforts is based around the theme of a circle (but there is no globe amongst them!) which is apparently “a symbol of community and unity” according to Charlie Mawer of Red Bee. 

The eight initial idents are entitled: Bikes, Ring-a-Roses, Kites, Moon, Surfer, Windows, Football and Hippos. Each ident will be used to correspond with the type of programme that it is trailing, for example the Hippos ident might be used in conjunction with a wildlife programme. Expect to see them on your screens from 7 October…