Until the introduction of a logo in 1958, the corporation had relied on its coat of arms for official documentation and correspondence, although it rarely appeared onscreen.

In printed media and corporation correspondence, it used the BBC coat of arms, while on screen, it used a different logo type.

Originally, it used a stylised BBC text on early equipment, not unlike the caption that accompanied the BBC1 COW globe.

In 1932, when the original reception room of the BBC Broadcasting House in London opened, a logo was laid in mosaic on the floor.

This mosaic logo is still visible on the floor today, though the area no longer serves as the BBC's main reception room.

[3] Nicknamed the 'bat's wings',[3] it consisted of a rounded brass contraption with a tiny spinning globe in its centre, with large wing-like protrusions flanked by lightning bolts on either side.

It was superseded by the BBC TV logo within a circle, behind which would appear a map of Britain split into broadcast regions.

Its logo was similar to that of BBC1, featuring the distinctive horizontal stripe, but with a large 2 in the centre with the BBC blocks beneath.

The word 'colour' was included to remind viewers still watching in black and white to purchase a colour TV set.

More now than ever, merchandise was being branded with the logo, as more productions were being sold via the BBC's American identity, Lionheart Television.

Also, records and videos were now starting to be produced and a corporate identity was getting more and more essential to ensuring that the audience knew it was authentic and that the quality programmes they were watching could be attributed to the BBC.

Since the last one was made, a consumer brand was becoming part of nearly every TV station and corporation at the time (and, at ITV, had been so for many years).

They modified the then-current logo by sharpening up the parallelogram edges again and set them to an angle of 17 degrees without reducing the size of the spaces between the boxes.

As of 2023, this practice is rarely used, although a brief animation using the 2022 variant was shown in the beginning of the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 grand final.

The only visible issue with the system was that the logo for the BBC television and radio brands did not reflect their genre or appeal to the tastes of their target audiences.

BBC One's idents were replaced with a new series known as "Rhythm & Movement", which were themed around dance and multiculturalism.

Meanwhile, BBC Two shifted to new "personality"-themed idents to reflect its current programming direction, where the 2 was now depicted as a three-dimensional, anthropomorphic character.

The following year, BBC Two adopted a "Window on the World" theme for its idents, where the 2 symbol was now represented as a cut-out in various environments.

[12][13] The initial launch included new on-air presentation elements for the BBC's television services—codenamed "Chameleon"[14]—including new wordmark logos also using the font, and use of the blocks as part of new animated transitions (framed by the BBC logo and channel name at the top and bottom centre of the screen respectively) in promos and continuity.

[12][13] Specific BBC services, such as iPlayer, News, Sounds, and Sport have new icon logos, formed from arrangements of three rectangles representing the blocks.

BBC Three returned to linear television in 2022, with its new idents centred around a trio of personified, animated hands.

[15] BBC One launched its Lens idents on 1 April 2022; developed by BBC Creative and London based branding agency ManvsMachine, the idents feature scenes of activities in community spaces, with a circular "lens" effect revealing scenes of other activities taking place at the same location at different times of the day.

[16] On 15 March 2023, CBBC and CBeebies introduced new logos and idents incorporating the new branding scheme, with CBBC's idents featuring abstract scenes involving three snake-like "flooms" personifying the blocks,[17] and CBeebies adopting its first-ever new logo, updating its traditional "bug" mascots with a more square-like shape to personify the blocks.