When BBC News radically relaunched its TV news presentation in September 1981, one of the changes resulted in a branding anomaly on BBC Two – as demonstrated in a recent video upload by the Kaleidoscope group.
For the short early evening BBC Two news summaries, BBC News designers decided to create a ‘2’ logo based on the new horizontal line globe device. However, the result was a ‘2’ logo that had more in common with the 1974 – 1979 BBC Two logo than the current one.
Even though there were lots of little inconsistencies in on-screen branding back in those days, this particular logo didn’t last much longer. Perhaps someone felt that it wasn’t “on brand”?
Acknowledgements
PICTURED: Donald MacCormick presenting a BBC Two news summary. SUPPLIED BY: YouTube Channel - Kaleidoscope's Presentation Vault. COPYRIGHT: BBC.
You say these graphics were created by “BBC News designers” but I have to wonder if that was actually the case.
I have a strong suspicion that these summaries were actually produced by the Newsnight team at Lime Grove rather than the TV Centre newsroom, given the personnel on presenting duty. Could these not-quite-on-brand graphics have been put together by designers in the Current Affairs dept at LG, rather than the team responsible for the main news studio, which explains why it looks like a mock?