Video: Graham McCallum on fifty years of TV branding

Graham McCallum, the designer behind some of the best known TV branding, celebrates his 70th birthday this week with a retrospective look at the last fifty years in the business.

In a short video, below, McCallum discusses his TV design work after a lengthy career working on programmes including Jackanory and Blackadder through to his recent work shaping the look of modern news for CNN and London Live.

McCallum, who started his career in the graphics department of the BBC in 1966, joined during an era when the Corporation was known as the “Hollywood of the small screen”.

Alongside his broadcast work at the BBC, McCallum also cultivated a lucrative creative sideline in illustration and publishing, first within the BBC for tie-ins of TV shows, and then independently for various books and magazines.

After his in-house experience at the BBC, McCallum went on to establish his first agency, MKD, in 1986, with John Kennedy and Paul D’Auria before launching Kemistry with Ricky Churchill in 1997.

A retrospective of McCallum’s design work opens at the Kemistry Gallery on Saturday.