Concept and creative process
The anthropomorphising of the ‘2’s and the emergence of the ‘Personality 2s’ came about because the ethos of BBC Two had changed under the influence of a new Channel Controller, and had evolved from factual programming to mainly entertainment-based programming. The previous Channel idents, that had served the Channel so well, were consequently out of kilter with the Channel, and so Martin Lambie-Nairn, the creator of the 1991 Channel Branding, was again called upon to address the problem. His solution was to launch the ‘Personality 2s’ in 2001, a collection of computer-generated 3D white ‘2’s in a yellow environment that were able to adopt different entertaining personalities. In addition, the BBC branding was altered and re-positioned, reversed out in white in a purple box, at the bottom right of the screen, with the BBC boxes stacked on top of the word BBC Two. This style was applied shortly afterwards to the promotion of the other BBC channels, creating a unified style for all BBC on-screen branding. The new ‘Personality 2’ branding solution offered a free rein to the designers to devise many amusing short scenarios for Channel idents. In this ident, ‘Morris Dancers’ from 2005-2007, the camera tracks out from a ‘2’ playing an accordion to reveal six more ‘2’s, complete with waving hankies, taking part in a traditionally choreographed Morris dance. They continue to weave between one another and wave their handkerchiefs in time to the music until the end of the ident. The computer animation was art directed by Simon Crabtree and animated in-house by Andy McNamara, who coincidentally had once been a Morris Dancer himself, and so was easily able to create authentic choreography for the sequence.