Evolution of the Millennium Bug

Millennium Bug-buster body Action 2000 has evolved its design presence as part of a marketing campaign to communicate that the bug is a business issue, not an information technology issue.

Smith & Milton has reviewed the identities for Action 2000 and the Millennium Bug and revamped the information pack. Design and marketing group Quentin Bell created the original designs (DW 30 January). Meanwhile, Web group Motion Pixels has evolved the website it created for the initiative’s launch.

“The project has changed. It was initially an awareness campaign, aiming to alert people to the problem and give advice. Now it is more a question of ‘You know what it is and you have to act now’,” says a Department of Trade and Industry spokeswoman. Action 2000 is a DTI initiative.

“The evolved branding is more scary. The bug logo is more predatory and the colours of the Action 2000 logo have been reversed to make it stand out more,” adds the spokeswoman. The information pack has been divided into “more digestible chunks” and the website has a more interactive focus, she says.

The bug is caused by the timing mechanisms inside computers and electronic devices, which will read the year 2000 as 00 and could malfunction after 1999.