Old Global Graphics

[imissvtv]

November 1, 2001 - Boards Magazine
Special Report: Broadcast Design


Upstairs buttons Global



by Rae Ann Fera
page 56

For the recent redesign of news programming on Canadian network Global, Toronto's The Studio Upstairs dared to play with the station's long-standing crescent moon motif.

Charged with the task of making the Global brand appeal to a wider audience, the Upstairs crew blended the existing crescent into a series of concentric rings moving around lens-like buttons, also housing the crescent.

"They said 'Make us look good," says Upstairs executive producer Michael Churchill. "And the one thing we didn't want to do is make it look like everybody else's newscast."

Upstairs redesigned program identification for the national and local news broadcasts, the sports news program and current affairs show Global Sunday. Red rings flow and layer to create crescents amid light flares for Global National and was designed by Michael Churchill. Global Local, designed by Robert Pilichowski, retains similar elements, though is lighter in color and tone. Global Sports, designed by Michael Spicer, maintains the same color scheme, but employs motion graphics to distinguish it from the others. The Global Sunday branding, however, takes a departure from the button/crescent motif. "Global Sunday is still a news product, but staying within the button motif didn't make sense for a current affairs show," says Churchill.

"So, we wanted to create some distinction. With this one, they gave us a lot of leeway."

The Global Sunday design (designed by Robert Pilichowski and created in After Effects in Mya) utlizes a simple black, white and red color palette. The camera pans across graphical B&W Canadiana scenes, while silhouettes and images of host Charles Adler pop up intermittently, all the while set to a jazzy score.

The Studio Upstairs has also recently completed broadcast work for The Men's Network, which creates a mechanical journey rather than photo realistic images and for the Discovery Channel program, 24 Hours that blends images from around the world, time elements and motion graphics to illustrate the hurried pace of the show.

Webfiles:
The Studio Upstairs> www.thestudioupstairs.com

[vanaznboi]

Interesting fact. Thanks for posting this up. Apparently, the current news graphics are all produced by Global BC, as the producer of the weekend morning news told me in an e-mail earlier this year.

[TRENT310]

Yay. Apparently no one mentioned the Prime > TVTropolis switch, eh.

Aaand I just finished downloading all the clips off that site.

[tvwest]

vanaznboi said:

Interesting fact. Thanks for posting this up. Apparently, the current news graphics are all produced by Global BC, as the producer of the weekend morning news told me in an e-mail earlier this year.

I can't believe how this company made such amazing designs for CTV and other channels, yet Global managed to get a really flat and unimaginative look for its local newscasts. Global National and Global Sports looked really good.

... and I thought a company from LA designed the look for Global...

[love4bctv]

If you can find out what company designed the look, please post there site

[vanaznboi]

I did a search on Google and found these interesting sites:

www.broadcastermagazine.com/issues/ISarticle.asp?id=57518
www.sparkcreativeinc.com/

[imissvtv]

Whoever designed the new graphics has no idea where on a map Vancouver is located. The flashing squares in the intro that are supposed to indicate Vancouver in reality are showing us where Powell River is. Another thing, the "beeps" for the open to the News Hour with Tony Parsons are a lot less audible than the intro for the other news programs...Maybe Tony doesn't like the beeps

[vanaznboi]

imissvtv said:

Another thing, the "beeps" for the open to the News Hour with Tony Parsons are a lot less audible than the intro for the other news programs...Maybe Tony doesn't like the beeps

Also notice that the announcer says "The News Hour. Here is Tony Parsons." instead of "The News Hour with Tony Parsons." But for substitutes, he says "The News Hour with Deborra Hope" or "The News Hour with Chris Gailus", for example.

[sean08]

Ya, I've noticed that to! Also, is there any chance Tony used to have the Announcer say "here's Tony Parsons"? Like when it was BCTV?

[BCTVforever]

I never liked those Global 2001 graphics, ESPECIALLY Global Sunday. I recall the CN Tower snapping in half or some such absurd thing. The "button" motif was dropped on Global in Ontario in early 2004 for its news programming. The current graphics package is way better.

[imissvtv]

Those 2004 graphics that Global Ontario used were VERY good. Too bad they weren't used on all the Global stations.

[sean08]

Also referring to my post above, has anyone noticed they changed what the announcer says on the morning news to? Now he says "Live, from Global British Columbia. The morning news. Here are Lynn Collier and Steve Darling" Do you guys think that Global BC is slowly changing all their news broadcast's to do this?