Aardman Animations

1st Logo (1989-1998)
Nickname: "The Clayface", "The Materials"

Logo: On a sunny sky blue background, we see the top of a clay green planet with a river running through it, trees, etc. The planet turns right and a red/yellow polkadot bowtie shaped butterfly places itself on a patch of blue and white, which appears to be a suit. As this is happening, the letters A A R D M A N

in various shapes, arrange and form themselves to the right so they are in separate wooden boxes which form in the same time. A brown pillar, a staircase, A wooden pillar with a yellow and black zigzag plank, and two pieces of wood also arrange and form themselves as a picture frame. A smiling clay face drops from behind the top part of the frame to the suit where we can't see the eyes. Then four clouds drop into place in the sky, as

Aardman Animations presents (in white)

fades in below. All of this takes place inside a small white box against a black background.

Variants:


 * Sometimes, a still version of this logo exists with different text and a copyright notice below.
 * On Not Without My Handbag and The Wrong Trousers, The logo is shown to be altered, the smile is different, the number of red pots on the bowtie has slightly reduced and the last "A" in the vertical stacked "AARDMAN" is in a different style.
 * A print version exists on the end card of Rex the Runt. it has the font from the last logo and it seems to be the face looking through a telescope with stars (with the one from the next logo) around it.

FX/SFX: The river, the butterfly flying, the face dropping down, the clouds dropping, and the whole scene turning. Very impressive animation that has aged really well over the years.

Cheesy Factor: None for the original variant, But the print variant deserves this, It does NOT match the real logo at all! and the drawing makes it extremely difficult to show what it EVEN is!

Music/Sounds: Two ominous violin notes, followed by a bird cry, and two more short bass violin notes.

Music/Sounds Variant: A slightly higher pitched version was found when Cartoon Network aired The Wrong Trousers on 21 April 2012.

Availability: Seen on many Aardman shorts, most notably the Wallace & Gromit shorts A Grand Day Out, The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave; it was removed on the 2001 DVD containing all three shorts (from BBC/Warner Home Video, a still version with copyright information was seen at the end of TWT and ACS) but was put back in for one W&G short (A Close Shave) on Wallace and Gromit in Three Grand Adventures when it was released by DreamWorks. The logo is intact on the CBS-Fox VHS prints of those shorts, so check eBay, Amazon, or a local thrift store for those tapes. Also seen on Netflix's prints of those three shorts.

Scare Factor: Low, mostly due to the music. The scare factor might rise if you find it paired with the "Ominous Choir" BBC logo. Some people may also get creeped out by the clay face. The Print variant might be raised a little, because it looks strange.

2nd Logo (1998- )
Nickname: "The Machine", "Gears"

Logo: On a light cerulean-blue background with three matching gears, we slowly zoom toward a blue square with a red star (with gears inside) on it. It has little arms, legs, and a head, and is running on a green gear-like object that has some of the letters of "Aardman" printed on it in red and green and some letters in red are spinning around in different directions on black sticks by teal and green gears. Surrounding the square are clouds, hands, cars, trees, planes, buildings, and people rotating around on different colored gears. A hand then reaches out from the right, grabs the square, and presses its head like a stopwatch, freezing the scenery. "Aardman" is formed below.

Variant: On Wallace & Gromit The Curse of the Were Rabbit, a short version was used.

FX/SFX: All the animation used, which is done in a strange, sketchbook-like style.

Music/Sounds: A sly jazz tune with ticking that stops when the logo does.

Music/Sounds Variant: On the Pathé print of Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, the opening theme of the movie is heard.

Availability: Seen on later episodes of Rex the Runt, Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and the Pathé print of Chicken Run, though it was absent on the DreamWorks print (however a still version of the next logo below is seen at the end). It did, however, appear on the Chicken Run video game for PlayStation, Dreamcast, and PC.

Scare Factor: None.

3rd Logo (2000- )
Logo: On a black BG, we see the word "Aardman" (similar to the previous logo, but in a grungy font), with a star drawn in the same style shown on the top left, peeling up out of the blackness, while a printed reflection is seen at an angle below. When the logo fully appears, the reflection fades out, leaving just the logo.

Variants:
 * On Aardman-produced TV shows since 2003, the logo is a brighter shade of red and is a still image.
 * On Wallace & Gromit's Cracking Contraptions, a white background is used.
 * On Shaun the Sheep, this logo is shown at the top, with the CBBC logo (a green egg shape with a big purple C on it and the BBC logo below in white) in the center. Copyright info is shown below.
 * At the end of the films, the logo is completely still.
 * On Flushed Away, the logo appears one-by-one.
 * There is a cinematic variant, where the print blocks of "Aardman" are placed in the machine. A pair of tweezers puts the star print block in its matching slot. Then we zoom out and pan as the machine starts up and we see on the other side that "Aardman" and the star is printed on the convenor belt. While this is an official variant, it has not yet been seen on Aardman movies as of yet; the regular version described above is a shorter version.
 * Sometimes, the star is slightly shifted further away from the word.
 * On Shaun the Sheep Movie, there's a custom variant of the logo. On a gray background, we see the sheep from the TV series the movie is based off of huddled around, before moving to reveal that they all have the letters of "Aardman" printed on their bodies. They accidentally form "Amadran", and 2 of the sheep move around to form "Aardman". A tiny staircase is pushed into the picture, and a sheep wearing the red star climbs onto it.

FX/SFX: The computer-generated sliding animation. For the variant, none.

Music/Sounds: A quiet grinding noise plays as the logo slides in, then silence; or the opening music of the film. For the variant, just the end theme of the show.

Availability: Current; the variant is seen on Aardman-produced TV shows. The 2006 logo can be seen on Flushed Away. The current 2011 regular logo can be seen on Arthur Christmas and ''The Pirates! Band of Misfits''.

Scare Factor: None.