BBC’s Scandinavian channel Nordic launches with meditative identity

BBC is merging what was once two separate channels that operated in Scandinavia, BBC Brit and BBC Earth, into the new BBC Nordic. The broadcaster announced the new dedicated linear channel and on-demand service in February, stating it would research viewing habits in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland to create a “tailored line up” of programming. London moving image specialists Weareseventeen are responsible for a motion-first identity for the channel, featuring CG idents and a marque harnessing negative space.

The brand is based around a recurring symbol of a light beam, what Weareseventeen calls a “prism edge”, appearing at a diagonal angle. It shows up in each channel ident, but also informs a new plus-shaped marque developed for Nordic+ (the channel’s VOD offering) which leverages negative space in a similar way to other memorable branding projects this year.

BBC Nordic launches with a total of five CG idents. In each, the light symbol is shown with a unique motion behaviour to represent a different side of the channel. For example, one ident set in a forest shows the prism moving at speed, constructed of fireflies, while the next shows a more abstract iteration.

“We started by exploring the brand’s pillars and distilled those down into unique motion behaviours,” explains Weareseventeen’s creative director Gary Roberts. “These were then taken forward and inhabited by the prism edge, whether that’s through the speed or the way the edge presents itself to us, its movement or choreography (or lack of) in the space, or the more natural or man-made quality of the light.”

The result is a largely meditative brand, which aligns with the channel’s positioning as an “appointment to unwind”, a release states. Though Weareseventeen also explains how the overarching theme of light allows BBC Nordic to bounce between more upbeat and subdued tones. The prism symbol nods to the concept of “enlightening programming”, while the contrast between light and dark suggests the range of programmes available and the “seasonal extremes of the region”. The colour palette similarly flexes between warmer and cooler tones.