Concept and creative process
As a newly recruited designer at the BBC my first brief was to design the opening titles for ‘Crackerjack’, a children's entertainment and variety show. My concept was an animated neon sign of the programme logo I had designed. The show’s producer looked at it and said “I will run black to the nation next week (ie a blank screen!) unless it has stars on it. All Light Entertainment programmes have stars!”. A kind rostrum cameraman, understanding my dilemma, offered to help and the twinkling stars were added via a second aerial image shoot. A back-lit Kodalith with gels, filmed on a rostrum camera, was used to create the neon look. That version of the animated logo was initially used alone, but later on the production edited my animated logo to top and tail and punctuate shots of the children in the audience interacting with the show’s presenters, which is the version seen here.