BBC Two 'Personality' idents

The BBC Two Personality idents were a set of idents used on BBC Two from 19 November 2001 until 18 February 2007. The idents were produced by the Lambie-Nairn branding agency, who had created the previous look. The idents feature an ivory sans serif white '2' in a yellow environment and performing a variety of tasks, and a purple boxed BBC Two logo.

Since 1997, BBC Two was beginning to change its programming style. The channel was becoming less factual and more light hearted. This problem had already been posed to the last ident package, and they had responded by adding some newer lighter hearted idents, such as 'Swan' and 'Zapper'. However, by 2001, the channel was becoming even more entertainment based, and the old idents were no longer appropriate. A thorough re-brand was needed, and one that would equal the popularity gained by their predecessors and be light-hearted in face of this new programming. This task was set to Martin Lambie-Nairn, who set out by continuing a theme began in the previous set: that of making the '2' a person.

At the same time, the BBC Two programme controller changed and the BBC Two channel was directed differently; it wanted to broaden its audience, it wanted to be much lighter and so the identity we had produced for it before became completely wrong. It was based in the art world, if you like, and so we made the 2 into a character.

Another new part of the presentation was the logo for the channel, as the simple "BBC TWO" logo that had been used previously would not be accompanying the channel following the rebrand. The solution was putting the logo in a box, with the BBC stacked on top of the TWO.

After this was running for about four or five years, we then had some new programme controllers come in, and they were not at all sympathetic of having the system 'BBC' and then their brand after, same as their colleagues next door. They wanted a logo like proper television channels and proper companies ... we were then called back in, and they said we want a logo. They quite simply said you do it or we get someone else to do it. So I said I would do it, in case someone does something horrid, and so I just put them in a box.

The idents were produced entirely on computer and featured a constant ivory '2' on a yellow background. This aspect never varied in the majority of their usage. Also accompanying the new look was a new style of logo for the BBC, that of a box. This new style was a variation of a logo but still retaining an overall look. The box was purple in colour and was always located in the bottom right corner of idents and presentation.

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