Liz Friedman

Liz Friedman is a multi-award-winning former BBC designer who, after a long and successful career with the Corporation, left to apply her extensive knowledge of all aspects of motion design for film and television to the education of undergraduates and postgraduates at Ravensbourne, where she was a Course Leader and established the Motion Graphics course as the main feeder to the Industry. She was instrumental in helping to launch the BBC Motion Graphics Archive, which holds many examples of her work from the 1970s through to the early 2000s. In her interview she discusses some of the innovative means by which designers got their work on the screen in the search for an original and appropriate solution, guidelines that Liz Friedman constantly espoused in her approach to motion graphics design. For Liz the creative concept was paramount and the ability to encapsulate the essence of a programme in one simple memorable idea, was a goal to which she always aspired.

Liz Friedman believes that BBC Motion Graphics, because of its frequent high-profile successes at international awards ceremonies, had a great influence on television design throughout Europe and America in the 1990s and changed the face of television abroad. Other countries learned from the BBC approach to design and emulated it. Ex-BBC designers helped through their own independent creative agencies to spread the British influence further still. Design changed for the better everywhere and Liz firmly believes that motion design would not be what it is today were it not for the influence of BBC Television Motion Graphics.