The revamped BBC3 logo has provoked an outpouring of new year merriment, not helped by the corporate executive in charge boasting that it “doesn’t actually say three”.
In a blogpost published on Monday, the morning the logo went out on Twitter, the channel’s head of marketing Nikki Carr tried to pre-empt any comparisons with W1A, the BBC satire in which the head of marketing is constantly saying things like “130% sure” and “way cool”.
Thanks to W1A we’re cursed at the BBC when it comes to marketing and I don’t want to come across all Siobhan Sharpe but forgive me some lingo. The visual identity brings new BBC3 together – a new logo, new idents, new animations and new on screen presentation, all with a new colour pallete. This visual identity will underpin what we do in the future.
What is most striking is the new logo and the fact it doesn’t actually say three. It’s easy to belittle the importance a logo has in supporting a brand, and I’m sure the usual critics will have their say – ‘It looks like Adidas’, ‘it looks like a “hamburger menu icon’, ‘it doesn’t even say three’, ‘are they Roman numerals’ – but If I’m being honest I’m not worried. Some people are resistant to change and we wanted to be bold and create something that looks forward and will be around for years to come.”
It seemed Carr was anticipating suggestions that BBC3 had got in W1A’s fictional design agency Perfect Curve to come up with the new logo ahead of the channel’s relaunch next month.
The new BBC Three logo is basically this scene from W1A https://t.co/FMLWcKs9Lv
— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) January 4, 2016
Despite the Twitter-led backlash, not everyone was so down on the new design.
At 1st a BBC 3 logo that looks like someone shouting BBC 2 seems odd, but then I suppose a more excitable BBC 2's what it's always been.
— Ivan Kirby (@hellothisisivan) January 4, 2016
There were even suggestions of applying the new aesthetic to other channels – with this version drawing on the logo of US hardcore band Black Flag.
Perhaps that new BBC3 logo makes sense after all... pic.twitter.com/jjavFo5uhM
— Chris Lake (@lakey) January 4, 2016
Carr was undeterred by such comparisons – pointing out that, after eight years, and with a new online version to shout about, it is time for change. “In an age of smartphones we needed a whole new system that fits the digital world, not something analogue just shoehorned into it. We needed to develop something that worked on a TV screen and as an app icon. Look at Snapchat. They’re doing OK without having Snapchat in their logo.”
Yet perhaps the new logo shouldn’t have come as a huge surprise given a version had been playing on the the BBC3 channel for weeks previously, with no one kicking up much fuss. An indication, perhaps, of why the decision was made to take the channel online in the first place?
