Building Teletext pages.

Inspired by the recent demise of Ceefax (and teletext services altogether with it), a couple of days ago I set about tracking down some teletext editing software with the intention of finding a suitable means of making my own. I discovered a freeware program called CebraText (available for download here), and after a considerable amount of time getting my head around it, I finally completed my first ever teletext page! Furthermore, I've cobbled together a couple more examples and generally had a bit of fun in doing so.

So far, I've done a main menu (first one I made):




An editorial page based on a certain recent blog of mine:




And earlier tonight, a couple of TV based pages:






The first page I made (main menu) was the end result of nearly 4 hours solid work having never used, or even heard of, the software before. Nevertheless I had a great deal of fun making this page, and have learned to appreciate even more the task carried out by official teletext constructors, which can be tricky at the best of times, though a real challenge if you're trying to do something complex.

Case in point: take the first page I made. There are several invisible characters dotted around the screen called "control characters". Every time you want any individual effect besides white text on black (i.e. colours, blinking, background, text size etc.) You need to use up one space with the corresponding character, the more effects needed the more space taken up. Here's the same page, but with control characters made visible:




I have to say, it's a learning experience I enjoyed. Anyone else fancies giving it a go, feel free to do so. Be fun to see any creations fellow forumers might make, feel free to drop them here if you do.

Also, the top rows (with the date, time & page numbers) were mocked up in post-production in a seperate project, then copypasted onto the page in MSPaint. Strangely enough, the time I wrote on the first clock is near enough the time I finished it, so I decided to stick with the idea for subsequent pages.

S'actually a sound idea. Might try and fashion a Mega-Zine template later on, given I can get Davord's portrait correct of course.

Anyways, a bit extra inspiration. I started earlier by reconstructing this page, a photo I took from the last day of anologue activity in Tyne Tees.



I then went on to peruse a quandry. What if Ceefax ever updated its look? With this in mind I made a few mock-ups as to how a refreshed Ceefax may look, given that it's current (and last) appearance dates from the late 90s! Using the above menu as a base, this is the end result of that endeavour:



A few of the design features involved: Retaining the signature blue and yellow associated with Ceefax, I swapped round the news ticker (now bottom) with the ever-famous tagline, which now appears directly under the logo. I redesigned the menu interface with this "yellow window" (ultimately thought it looked brighter and more flattering than having it blue). It allows space for 20 items, though the middle bars can easily be removed to increase that capacity to 24.

As for the logo itself, I went for rounded lettering for the "Ceefax" as most, if not all, of the logos I've seen tend to have square-edged letters so I fancied bringing it away from that. Also, quite notably, I've given the actual BBC logo an update to bring it more into line with the current logo (the one they've had all this time doesn't really resemble it too well, looking sort of like a hybrid of the current BBC logo and one from the 60s/70s).

Finally, also put together a couple news pages in this style. The articles are taken from 1st October's pages:





Having the same amount of print space on this design ended up being a happy coincidence rather than a compromise, so all's well that ends well on that front. Ultimately I think it looks a refreshing change, while perhaps reminiscent of one of the older page designs.