Funny squiggles

micro-documentaries for the BBC about glyphs

In December 2017 the BBC were looking for content providers for a new channel called BBC Ideas. I teamed up with Simon at Dayglow Media, we pitched a couple of concepts, and Bingo! we got the gig.

The channel is for mobile content, short and shareable. We were commissioned to create micro-documentaries on obscure punctuation marks… you know, Pilcrows and Interrobangs, etc. We titled the series “GLYPHS” – aimed to keep each under 2 minutes and pack as much interesting info in as we could. We used a mix of animation and live-action (that’s what animators call it when you point a camera and click a button… easy-peasy, huh!)

They turned out to be a big success with over 500K views so far – no one’s more surprised than I am. We’ve made 8 videos in the glyph series, and the BBC have commission 4 more about hand gestures. Brilliant!

Because it’s the BBC I can’t link directly to the videos, but if you click the images below you’ll go the playlist page on the Beeb’s website where you can watch them.

Client

  • BBC Ideas

Services

  • Animation
  • Illustration
  • Live-action video