SVT's Grafiskt Center shows it all

Once in a while I don't really need to look really far for tasty television graphics nuggets. Swedish national broadcaster SVT's graphics department, rightfully proud of their work, have published some of their more recent work, nicely collated in a show reel! Some very cool stuff in there!

VTM Nieuws also restyles anno 2013

Yesterday, I wrote about Flemish broadcaster VRT and the restyling of their news and current affairds programmes.

Interestingly VRT's main rival VTM has also restyled its news about a month ago. Its restyling was not done inhouse, but by French broadcasting design bureau Gédéon. 
They've been supplying VTM with a new look on and off now for the past few years. And they also went for a circular news set with virtual reality elements (both channels work extensively with vizrt). But unlike VRT, they chose for a complete overhaul in their colour scheme. Since 2006 their main colour was bright orange (often with accents of red). Now, they're going for a more aggressive black, red and blue, with white, bold lettering.

I really like the intro, how the set comes to life, the big world map being sonar'ed in. They then use a motorized camera travelling in an arc around the newsdesk, whilst virtual glass panels fly around the center. At the head-on point the intro moves into the headlines, which are given full screen. The final two headlines are shown in a shot of a video wall, which is a transition back to the news studio, where the camera zooms out and brings it all back to the news desk. In general, the intro has a very good flow and looks very international.

It may look fine here, but imagine looking at this on your 42" LED TV!

Unfortunately they decided to go with even bigger and fatter fonts than their previous look, so watching that on an HD screen, it just looks grotesque. The idea behind this is, as they're trying to push the mobile video app, having the bigger fonts on the small screen increases legibility. For me it really is too in-your-face. If they toned it down a notch or two on the fonts, it would be more balanced, and not look so tabloid-like.

While I think news needs to be updated and rethought once in a while, VTM seems to have taken this to the extreme, as their previous restyle was barely two years old. 

VRT news and current affairs programmes get a make over

Flemish national broadcaster VRT announced a new look and set design for its news and current affairs programmes. They've been working on it for several months now, and the result is simply stunning. For people who knew the previous look, it doesn't seem an earthshattering restyle, but that's what I like about it. It's a very elegant step forwards in the design logic VRT has taken since 2008.

So this new look builds upon the current styling, but moves it up a notch with virtual reality elements and a fully integrated set design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMnP-aPTiQ0

In the studio, a circular 270-degrees set has been erected, which is cut halfway by an half-open wall, almost like you'd get in a diner. The motorized camera's move through this wall and the software uses this as a feature to project graphical virtual reality elements onto the screen.

The news opens with a virtual clock indicating current time, before it morphs into the logo of the news programme. It's similar to what Danish broadcaster DR has done with its TV Avisen. I'll talk about DR's amazing news very soon.

It's very cutting edge and the techniques used here are also reminiscent of what ZDF has used for their mammoth news design. 

Overall, I think VRT's news department has put itself amongst the more innovative news-casters in the northern hemisphere, like Danish DR, the aforementioned ZDF and NRK.

Great tip on how to create DOF with C4D renders...

Design in Motion (by lynda.com) has a great quick tutorial on how to get DOF in C4D through AFX.

Design in Motion

Dipping the toes in the blogosphere pond...

Hey guys,

this is a first post, just to see how this blogging lark turns out to be!

I would like to say "stay tuned", but as of this moment, I can't make any promises that I'll actually post new stuff. :-)