After six years away, BBC Three returned to UK TV. The channel aimed at 16 to 34 years, took this opportunity to relaunch.

In a time when young people have so many grown-up pressures and expectations placed upon them by their parents, society and even themselves, BBC Three wanted to create a brand identity to convey it’s a channel that’s growing up not grown up. A place where it feels good to be young. A place where immaturity is a badge of honour. And, where young people can be themselves without fear of judgement.

After six years away, BBC Three returned to UK TV. The channel aimed at 16 to 34 years, took this opportunity to relaunch.

In a time when young people have so many grown-up pressures and expectations placed upon them, BBC Three wanted to create a brand identity to convey it’s a channel that’s growing up not grown up. A place where it feels good to be young. A place where immaturity is a badge of honor. And, where young people can be themselves without fear of judgement.

We wanted to create something iconic & completely unique to BBC Three, something that celebrates difference, something irreverent. Something like three hands…

Meet Captain, Spider and Pointer, three unapologetically different personalities living in a world where they are free to explore, play & irreverently reflect what’s going on in young people’s lives – without being worthy or worse still, cheugy (trying too hard)!

Approach:

We worked with a director to develop three unique characters each with their own personality, movement and mannerisms. A series of scripts were also developed and storyboarded. To ensure authentic hand movements and personality, we worked with puppeteers and filmed their hands as they acted-out the various scenes. We then worked with an animation studio to create the hand characters in Maya. The animators faithfully and painstakingly replicated the movement of the filmed scenes, whilst having the freedom to occasionally exaggerate hand and finger movement for characterisation and comedy effect.

Three forms of idents were created:

1.Quick 2 second stories create openers and closers which bookend the promos/trailers.

2.Continuity idents see the characters irreverently take on themes from popular culture, provide the channel the opportunity to playfully reflect relevant themes to the audience.

3.Template continuity idents, enable BBC Three to react and feature social content, with a series of playfully idents that see the three hands interact with featured social content.

Impact

Captain, Spider and Pointer, had a rapturous debut on launch night, which totally smashed expectations with BBC Three pulling in more viewers than its competitors E4 and ITV 2. The trio also had a hand in the launch campaign too, helping the channel hit 26+ million impressions, Trend #1 and increase mentions by almost 300%.

Brand Relevance:

Less brand relevance, more brand irreverence! The three hands irreverently reflect BBC Three’s belief, that young people should be free to explore, play, discover, experiment without fear of judgment or discrimination – ultimately a place where they are free to be themselves. After all, what’s more free than hands free of their own bodies?

Captain, Spider and Pointer, had a rapturous debut on launch night, which totally smashed expectations with BBC Three pulling in more viewers than its competitors E4 and ITV 2. The trio also had a hand in the launch campaign too, helping the channel hit 26+ million impressions, Trend #1 and increase mentions by almost 300%.

In the longer term, the three hands continue to irreverently reflect BBC Three’s belief – that young people should be free to explore, play, discover, experiment without fear of judgment or discrimination – and providing a space where they are free to be themselves. After all, what’s more free than hands free of their own bodies?