[LDN]

We've known for some time that MasterChef will be leaving its current home at Three Mills in London, and moving to a new dedicated home at the former Banana Warehouse in Digbeth, Birmingham. Obviously, the show will look quite different when it relocates in 2024, if for no other reason than it will be coming from completely new studios -- but I suspect an update is also coming to the presentational elements of the programme (branding, titles, in-show graphics, etc).

I stumbled across a BBC News article today, published in January, which has a visualisation of what the new studios might look like: 



I was immediately struck by two things: First, the use of the global MasterChef wordmark, rather than the horrid -- and very mid-Noughties -- typeface currently used on the UK show, as shown below... 



...and second, how similar the new studio visualisation appears to international variants of the show, such as MasterChef USA and MasterChef Australia, e.g.:



The BBC series has stubbornly resisted switching to the global MasterChef branding for years, which has always confused me -- given that the Beeb doesn't own the MasterChef format, I'm surprised the UK version has been able to continue doing its own thing in terms of both design and format for so long. 

Perhaps the move to Digbeth is being seen as the perfect opportunity to finally align the show's design with that of its international counterparts? And if that's the case, we'll surely see new or updated titles, and perhaps a new design for captions (e.g. name, hometown, etc). And if there is to be an alignment of branding, I wonder if the format of the UK show might also be tweaked to reflect the more competitive style of the international shows (e.g. all contestants in every show from the very beginning, rather than multiple heats with small groups of contestants at a time; more group challenges; earning 'advantages' and 'immunity' from being sent home, etc). 

Now, a quick, but much-needed, splash of cold water. 

I do of course realise that the image that started off this rambling post is just an 'artist's impression' by Stanhope, the firm managing the design and construction works, and I've seen enough artist's impressions to know that agencies often get details (even quite big and obvious ones!) wrong in their visualisations -- so it's entirely possible that all of this is based on nothing more than a mistake by the artists... 

...but I do think introducing a new/updated look at the same time as relocating to the new studios makes sense, so I'm inclined to believe (perhaps foolishly!) that it's not a mistake, and that it might just happen.

And frankly, the current titles are older than Fanny Cradock, so it's about time! 😄

(MasterChef UK image credit: Stanhope / BBC News www.bbc.com )