Pentagram’s Marina Willer brands BBC’s Hear Her series

Pentagram partner Marina Willer has designed the branding for Hear Her, a new series of content from the BBC that will “celebrate strong female voices and achievements” and examine gender equality.

Hear Her has launched to mark the suffrage centenary – 100 years since some women were first given the right to vote in the UK – and will include TV, radio and online content, including films, documentaries and discussions, and educational articles.

Series to promote suffrage centenary

Coverage will include feminist author Jeanette Winterson giving the Dimbleby Lecture on BBC One, a series of short promotional films from filmmaker Vanessa Engle, and actor Michelle Keegan tracing her family heritage and revealing her connection with Suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst in BBC show Who Do You Think You Are?.

Other series will include Body Language on BBC Three, which will look to “dismantle taboos and rail against expectation” of women’s bodies, says the BBC, and an eight-part radio series of monologues from female playwrights on BBC Four.

Charlotte Moore, director of BBC Content, says: “With so many bold and thought-provoking new commissions, Hear Her will look at how far female empowerment and equality has come over the past 100 years, examine what it is like to be a woman in 2018 and celebrate strong female voices and achievements.”

Mouth-based brand identity

Willer’s design work includes a brand identity, a series of idents and online and print promotional materials for the content season. Pentagram worked with BBC’s in-house design team BBC Creative on the project, which was also the client.

The identity features a lower-case, italics, sans-serif typeface set in yellow, accompanied by a photographed set of mouths above and below the logo. The BBC logo features in black at the bottom.

Bright colour palette

A core colour palette of yellow, orange and bright pink is used, with various shades of these colours plus peach and brown used across idents. A complementary, all-caps, sans-serif typeface is used across idents and communications, which appears to be inspired by the BBC logotype.

Idents include fast-paced letters and words flashing up and disappearing, accompanied by a moving version of the mouth that features in the main logo to suggest speaking.

The overall look appears bright and bold, and appears to incorporate elements of pop art with brash, clashing colour shades, lip motifs and large text.

The new identity has now rolled out across on-screen graphics and promotional materials, and will be used throughout the duration of the season.