Aardman Animations/Summary (2024)

1st Logo (1989?-December 31, 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.
• The print version appears on the end card of Rex the Runt. It has the font from the next logo and it seems to be the face speaking through a megaphone with stars (the one on the far right being the one from the next logo) shooting out of it.
  • An alternate version without the URL was spotted on the original airings of show's first series.
• There is an alternate version of this logo shown on the VHS Aardman Animations Vol. 1. The box, instead of the normal animation, shows a time-lapse video of a man in a set building the logo together. After a while, we zoom in to the logo and the finished result is the altered variant. The text "Aardman Animation presents" is in a different font.
• At the end of the same VHS, the normal logo plays, but the text says "Coming Soon: Aardman Animations Vol II", in a different font.
• At the end of Adam, the copyright text fades in after the still logo appears.
• On The Morph Files, the normal logo plays, but the the text is already there and it says "An AARDMAN ANIMATIONS Production" and there is a copyright notice underneath.
• At the end of HumDrum, the logo is cut off at the top.

FX/SFX: Stop-motion animation.

Music/Sounds: Two ominous violin notes, followed by a 3-note flute tune, a musical "thud" as the head falls into place, and two more short bass violin notes as the clouds fall into place and bounce. At the beginning of the logo, water can be heard.

Music/Sounds Variants:

• A slightly lower pitched version was found when Cartoon Network aired The Wrong Trousers on April 21, 2012 and on later North American prints of A Close Shave (due to the PAL-to-NTSC conversion).
• On the Aardman Animations Vol. 1 variant, we hear an eerie tune with several synth toms, crash-like sound effects and a harp-like noise when the logo zooms in.
• At the end of A Close Shave, we hear sheep bleating over the logo.
• At the end of The Wrong Trousers, we hear the final note of the closing theme.
• The closing variant may be silent or have the closing theme of the short.
• On the commentary tracks to the first 3 shorts on the Blu-ray of Wallace & Gromit: The Complete Collection, the logo is silent.

Availability: Seen on many Aardman shorts from the time period.

• The most notable of these are the Wallace & Gromit shorts A Grand Day Out, The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave.
• The logo was removed on the 2001 DVD containing all three shorts (from BBC Video/Warner Home Video; a still version with copyright information was seen at the end of TWT and ACS), but was put back in for A Close Shave on DreamWorks' Wallace and Gromit in Three Grand Adventures (and the 2005 region 4 DVD release containing all 3 shorts, with the TWT and ACS still copyright versions retained at the end of the respective shorts). It also doesn't appear at the start of The Wrong Trousers on its British VHS release, having been replaced by a title card (the copyright version is retained at the end however). The British VHS release of A Close Shave retains this this logo at the start.
• The logo is intact on the CBS-Fox VHS prints of the shorts, as well as streaming video versions.
• This does not appear on Creature Comforts (original 1990 short film), Next, Going Equipped, Pib and Pog, Owzat, Al Dente, Indent, Pop, War Story and Stage Fright, as they use an in-credit text instead.
• It's intact at the start and end of Adam on Aardman Animations' YouTube account.

2nd Logo (1998, June 23, 2000-March 1, 2009)[]

Nickname: "The Machine", "Gears"

Logo: On a light cerulean-blue background with three matching gears and a yellow gear (that represents the sun) that has clouds and anthropomorphic planes that spin around, 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 of its letters in red are spinning around in different directions on black sticks by teal and green gears. Surrounding the square are animated hands, cars, trees, houses, buildings, and people rotating around on different colored gears. As we finally zoom into the position of the square, a human hand then reaches out from the right, grabs the square, and clicks its head like a stopwatch, freezing the machinery. "Aardman" is formed below.

Variants:

• There is said to be a full open-matte version of the logo.
• At the beginning of Wallace & Gromit The Curse of the Were Rabbit, it begins just seconds before the hand comes in.
• An still version of the logo appears on the end card of later episodes of Rex the Runt.

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

Music/Sounds: For the normal version, it has a sly jazz tune with ticking that stops when the logo does, also when the hand comes in, we hear a man groaning. It debuted on the console versions of theChicken Run video-game.

Music/Sounds Variant:

• On the Pathé print Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, the opening theme of the movie is heard.
• On Chop Socky Chooks, the logo is silent.

Availability: Seen on later episodes of Rex the Runt, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and the Pathé print ofChicken Run, although the next logo is used at the end of the UK and US releases. It was also seen on the VHS/DVD releases ofThe Incredible Adventures of Wallace & Gromit and Creature Comforts. It was also seen on video games fromChicken Run toFlushed Away.

3rd Logo (January 1, 1999-December 3, 2021)[]

Logo: On a black background, 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.

Variants:

• A still logo appeared at the end of Chicken Run, as well as other feature films.
• Like the 2nd logo, there is used to be an full open-matte version of the logo.
• On Creature Comforts: The Series, the white logo is in the center of a brown background with copyright info underneath it.
• On Wallace & Gromit's Cracking Contraptions, the logo is on the white background with the copyright info below.
• On early episodes of Shaun the Sheep, this logo is shown at the top, with the 2005 CBBC logo (a green egg shape with a big "C" on it and the BBC logo below in white) in the center. Copyright info is shown below. On later episodes of the said show starting with "Abracadabra", it's the same as early episodes, except the 2005 CBBC "3D Bugs" logo in the center is replaced with the 2007 CBBC "Stylized CBBC" logo. Also, the word "CBBC" in white in a squared-off font with a thinner black outline and a green shadow and the BBC logo below in black.
• On Timmy Time, Wussywat the Clumsy Cat, Digby Dragon, The Peculiar Adventures of Hector, episodes of the 2016 Morph reboot on YouTube and Purple and Brown, the logo is in-credit. The white version is also used in-credit on Creature Comforts and later episodes of Shaun the Sheep, while the black in-credit version appeared on some videos on the Morph YouTube channel.
• On Flushed Away, an animated version, mostly like a prototype version of the next logo, is used. The text appears by rolling up on a invisible roller, and the star pops in after it emerges.
• A filmed variant was spotted on a Russian print of Flushed Away.
• On the sneak preview trailer of Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (thentitled just Wallace & Gromit),the still logo arranged horizontally with the star at the left and the word at the right.
• Sometimes, the star is slightly shifted further away from the word.

FX/SFX: None.

Music/Sounds: For the still version, it is none, or has the closing theme playing over it.

• For the 2006 logo, it has the opening theme playing over it.
• For the variant, just the end theme of the show.

Availability: No longer current; the logo can be seen at the end of Aardman-produced shorts and feature films, and the variant is seen on Aardman-produced TV shows. The logo variant can be seen on Flushed Away. The logo first appeared in Angry Kid and its final appearance overall was in Shaun the Sheep: The Flight Before Christmas, which premiered in international territories on Netflix on December 3, 2021 and then on BBC One on Christmas Eve, 2021.

4th Logo (November 23, 2011-February 14, 2020)[]

Logo: On a black background, we see the Aardman logo 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:

• 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. The camera zooms out and pan as the machine starts up and we see on the other side that "Aardman" and the star is printed on the conveyor belt. While this is an official variant, it did showed up on The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! short film So You Want To Be A Pirate! It eventually showed up on Early Man.
• 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.
• On Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, there's also a custom variant that parodies Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It opens with a sheep wearing a smoking and playing the Shaun the Sheep theme on an electric keyboard over a black background. Every key he touches makes letters of the word "Aardman" appear over him, and the whole word appears once he finishes the music. He then touches another key which makes the movie's opening music begin and also the star in the logo appear, and then goes away, as the logo fades to a space background, which makes the Aardman star turn into one of the white stars in it.

FX/SFX: The CGI peeling animation.

Music/Sounds: A quiet grinding noise plays as the logo slides in, then silence, or the opening music of the film.

Availability: Seen on Arthur Christmas, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! and Early Man.

5th Logo (January 17, 2022-)[]

Logo: On a very dark red background, a white star is seen turning around its vertical axis as it zooms in. Then, the star "explodes", revealing a pink-red background full of constantly changing fingerprints, as the text "AARDMAN" forms, but the first "A" is upside-down. Then, a tiny star emerges and lands on the first "A", turning it back upright. A few seconds later, everything slides down the screen.

Variants:

• A square video version of the logo exists. It can be seen on the company's Facebook page.
• At the end of Aardman's 2022 showreel, the logo is still and smaller with pink-red text on a black background.

Trivia: This was designed by Gavin Strange, who also designed the "Silly" variant of the BBC Two "Curve" IDs.

FX/SFX: The star turning, the text forming and the background with changing fingerprints.Music/Sounds: A drum beat tune with ticks.

Availability: Current. First seen on Aardman's social media pages on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and it also appears on the company's 2022 showreel.

Editor's Note: Opinions on this logo vary. Depending on who you ask, this logo is either seen as a refreshing change, or as too simplistic.

6th Logo (October 14, 2023-)[]

Logo: We open on a background made out of red clay. Suddenly, the "AARDMAN" text, in the same font as the prior logo, slowly extrudes out of the clay, as if it was being pushed, accompanied by a drop shadow. Once it stops, a small ball made out of the same red clay falls down and bounces on the first "A" letter, morphing into the star shape and standing next to the text.

FX/SFX: Stop-motion clay animation of the text coming out and the ball bouncing and morphing into the star.

Music/Sounds: Sound effects that accompany the actions described above.

Availability: Brand new. It debuted on Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget and will probably be also used on upcoming projects.

Editor's Note: None.