Following a two stage creative pitch, BBC Radio 6 Music contracted Firedog in to work collaboratively with the interactive team to re-design and re-fresh the look and feel of the 30 individual online presenter show pages on bbc.co.uk/6music. The brief was to create new visual assets to reinforce and communicate each of the show personalities and brand values – developing stimulating, presenter relevant, creative header and footer assets to top and tail the show page content. The new brand toolkit needed to consist of a visual design system to complement the existing 6 Music brand assets, but convey the breadth and depth of the music played on 6 Music and the individual flavours of the shows.

The solution

We provided a consistent design concept that could be maintained across the suite of shows, that could also be suitably adapted to represent the individual presenters. Firedog developed a short questionnaire for the presenters – in order to gain an insight into the show themes, unique traits, representative abstract objects, mood, listener personalities and visual stimuli. Findings were used to direct the image selection for each presenter. Firedog decided the most authentic creative result would come from using image assets directly from the presenters themselves. Jarvis Cocker, for example, sent us a favourite book ‘English Cheeses of the North’. The supporting images were then integrated with the concept visual look and feel, BBC 6 Music brand assets, presenter shots, font styles, a community illustration (to represent the listeners) and dynamic light waves – the result being highly creative, stimulating visuals with a true reflection of the 6 Music show family of radio personalities.

The results

The project was undertaken at a very difficult time in the channels history – At a period where it was looking to be cut along with a host of other stations and initiatives. Thankfully, there was a large uproar from the greater 6music community. As the creative launched at the same time, it neatly dove-tailed into feeding the flames of resistance – Via generating a great deal of interest and discussion online.