Concept and creative process
Opening titles for a magazine series about digital culture and computers ‘The Net’, presented by Benjamin Woolley and Fenella George. Former BBC graphic designer Brian Eley designed the sequence while working at SVC Productions. He was approached by independent producer John Wyver to design the titles for this computer series which had been commissioned by the BBC. The internet was relatively new and mysterious in 1994 and Brian Eley was asked to visualise the world wide web as something ‘more solid’, as opposed to the ubiquitous wire-frame structures connecting dots on a map seen hitherto. Brian was new to the Apple Mac and was still learning his way around Adobe Illustrator. He started with the logo, then used Illustrator to make typographic grids at various scales (resolution-independent) and gave them to the CGI facility Sensous. He also gave them a storyboard with spheres and pink ’swooshes' and encouraged them to experiment. Despite the extremely long rendering time, everything they made in 3D CGI came with mattes, to permit the combination of different elements in the edit. Two versions of the sequence were delivered to the client enabling the titles to be refreshed over time, giving them a longer life. This is the revised version of the original sequence which was aired in 1995.
Client - John Wyver at Illuminations for BBC.
Producer (SVC) - Monica Caddy.
Editor (graphics only, SVC) - Tom McKerrow.
3D and compositing - Nicola Mills and Ian Armstrong, Sensous.
Designer - Brian Eley.