[LDN]

You’re making that silly assumption that simple=bad and complicated=good.

This is a clever, simple, memorable device. I much prefer it to all those swirls and cats cradles.

You're making that silly assumption -- again (pres.cafe ) -- that anyone criticising a simple design believes that all simple design is bad. 

There's a big difference between saying "this simple design is bad" and "this design is bad because it's simple", as well you know -- so I really don't understand why you keep choosing to misrepresent what others are saying. 

As far as the new Focus on Africa design itself goes, in my opinion, it's just more of the same basic, bland design and animation, and weak branding, along with the new icon, which I've extrapolated to full-size below: 



Personally, it seems to me like one of those ideas that everyone thinks is very clever when they're brainstorming design concepts -- but which doesn't work particularly well in practice. 

It's obviously meant to be an iconographic -- and not a literal -- representation of Africa, and you can kind of see what they were going for. But when I look at those shapes, I wouldn't immediately think 'Africa'. And unlike the design of the previous opening titles, seeing this new icon swimming in nothing but shades of red, there's nothing else that evokes thoughts or images of Africa in the new branding either.

When I see this icon, I'm minded of maybe a bank or crypto company; perhaps something to do with sailing (!?); or just a logo for a generic global corporation from a movie (I was initially reminded of the iFruit logo from GTA...). I don't look at that icon and think "Africa", or even "BBC News", so I'm struggling to view this as a branding triumph. This isn't an improvement on the previous branding in any way that I can see. 

And aside from anything else, I personally don't think it's a particularly pleasant configuration of shapes. As a piece of design, it's just plain weird to look at; and as a representation of Africa, even an iconographic one, it takes considerable liberties with the actual geography to fit the graphical style. Aesthetically and graphically, I think it's a pretty weak solution in practice, that should have been discarded during the design process. 

Others may disagree (that's the thing with design -- its beauty, or not, is always in the eye of the beholder...), but in my opinion, like everything else in this new era of BBC News design, this latest example is basic, generic, and wholly inferior to what it replaced.