Lucy Bullen

A huge part of the job was producing documents for Brennan's Probation File, which are referred to regularly by his Probation Officers in their quest to understand his story. Amanda designed the Probation Service logo and established the house style, which I picked-up and repeated through their documentation. The file also contained evidence from Brennan's police file, including witness statements and crime-scene photos (are you convinced by my jam-based social effects on the knife?!) As well as records from his time in prison. We kept these as close as we could to how the real documents would look, which took a lot of detailed research.

The detail in the file getting its big close up (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

The evidence photos and Brennan's statement appearing in his police interview (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

*SPOILERS AHEAD* One of the key action props I designed was Sean's harrowing letter to Monroe, detailing years of abuse. Director, Luke Snellin, was keen that Sean's handwriting should be child-like and full of mistakes, both to reflect the poor education Hawthorne Park students had received and to show his emotional unravelling in the course of writing the letter. My initial drafts were much more subtle, but with each version the feedback was "More!" so this was where we ended up.

A rare example of a prop letter being featured in full - front, back, inside and outside envelope (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

*MORE SPOILERS* There was more emotional letter-writing to be done for the scene in prison where Brennan receives several years of unread post. The top row shows the three different options for the hero letter from Carly with the news of Naomi's death. Luke wanted to preserve the mystery in this scene about who the letter might be from, so all options had to fit on one side and the third is formatted as if it could be a formal letter from a stranger. The pile of letters also contained several other letters from Carly and I tried to show her progression from an 11 year old writing in glitter pens on colourful stationary sets to a teenager ripping pages from her school books, to an angry young woman writing in biro in a cheap notebook. I also included the letter from Christine that she mentions having sent to Brennan in episode 1.

I also included some official letters from the Probation Service and Brennan's solicitor, as well as Carly's rejected request for Brennan's Day Release. I had to think carefully about who would be writing to Brennan and what useful information he must have missed. Because of the table-flip in this scene, I had to produce multiple copies of all of these letters, plus their stamped, opened envelopes - try tearing open an envelope in exactly the same way 5 times and you'll see how time consuming this was!

Carly's letter giving no clues about who it's from (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

The pile of unread post (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

Another featured prop was the Three Aces Cafe flyer

The flyer getting its moment (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

When Brennan hurts his hand, Carly gives him a plaster, which was scripted as a child's plaster with cartoon animals. The top design was the winner. This proved to be a very fiddly prop make requiring multiple repeats - applying our design over real plasters, then re-sealing inside the protective wrapper

Brennan handily pointing out the graphic so no one misses it (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

Another Key Action Graphic was 'Deaf News UK', the magazine in which Brennan reads about the Hawthorne Park reunion. Luke wanted two versions of the main article - one centring Ray and the other featuring Monroe. My initial idea was for an advert inviting alumni to attend the reunion, but it was decided a full double-page article would have greater impact. I didn't waste the ad page though, as it became one of the safe filler pages, along with some other ads and reviews. The magazine was designed for our pick-up shoot, so I had to get creative recycling images and cleared names we already had from the main production.

The magazine article telling its part of the story (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

(Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

We also needed to produce two versions of the family photo Brennan carries through his prison term. The first version, shown after his release, having been handled and displayed for a decade (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

The second version in the prison flashbacks, just a couple of years old (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

More family photographs were featured in Carly's flat. Photographer, Lee Brown captured the images of Carly and Naomi and I edited them together to make these Photo Booth style strips. The other photo I took of actress Sophie Stone during the photoshoot for her selfie. We chucked it in to the pack last minute just as an extra option, but all three ended up being featured (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

A graphic prop that passed the "looks like the real thing at first glance" test enough to spook our Production Manager was this lottery ticket. As is always the case with a graphic designer's best work, it ended up not being used!

Another example of this phenomenon is the Sidings Motors invoice (top right) which we had printed up as a great little NCR carbon-copy pad, but alas it is never seen. In fact the whole of Sidings Motors was jinxed for me, as none of my signage was used either!

The briefest glimpse of the Sidings Motors invoice (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

I had better luck with the Ace Cafe (later to become Three Aces) This shows the development of the cafe's exterior signage, which ended up looking great

Ace Cafe exterior signage looking glorious in the night shots (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

Production Designer, Antonia Lowe, wanted a retro greasy spoon style for the cafe's interior. Here are the designs for the window decals, menu posters and table menus

Ace Cafe interior - you can just about make out the window decals in the background (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

Another key location with a retro feel was the Korner King Convenience Store, which went through quite a lengthy development process. Amanda came up with the initial lettering options and colour schemes, which I then expanded to create mock ups of the full exterior design. It was thought that these designs read too much as a supermarket, rather than a corner shop, so I went back to the drawing board and came up with some new lettering options. After a favourite was chosen, we then played around with some different colour ideas to arrive at the final design.

Toni wanted to keep the widow decals as uncluttered as possible, so we arrived at this simple wave design. I revived the K and crown motifs from the earlier concepts to create some special offer posters. There were also a couple of branded fridges in our location that had to be covered, so I rustled up some quick ice cream and soft drink designs

Korner King looking pretty convincing, if you ask me (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

Another graphic that went through a few versions was the 1980s Hawthorne Park School badge. One of the first things that happened on my first day on the job was someone from Costume ringing up to ask if the school logo was ready yet because they needed it ASAP to have embroidered blazers made up! So, I flew into action, putting forward 4 initial designs. The more abstract hawthorn tree went through a few stages of development with different colour schemes, lettering and badge shapes, but eventually it was decided that this was too modern. After a second look, the traditional heraldic tree from the initial set of designs was put forward and used with just a bit of neatening up

Also for the school and reunion scenes we had to organise a photoshoot with 20 children from the deaf community posing for class photos, individual portraits, sports days, music lessons, plays and all kinds of activities (Photo by Joshua Carver, Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

Another of my initial hawthorn tree designs got its chance when Toni suggested we use it as the logo for the hotel, which the school becomes after it closes down. Here are some of the signage cover-ups we designed, as well as the check-in screens for the reception computers

Signage cover-ups in the hotel lobby (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

The reception desk - alas the reception sign, which looked so good the location opted to keep it, is just off the top of this shot (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

The designs I'm most pleased with from Reunion are these little bits of signage for the council estate where Carly lives. I also made some fly posters to add to the overall feeling of neglect this set needed

Posters just about visible (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

If you look really closely, the No Ball Games sign is there! (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

More posters, but with more of a community feel, as well as signage for our fictional park

And more maps and posters for our fictional hospital

I also produced a couple of flyers and a BMW postcard to go on Brennan's prison cell noticeboard, based on his interest in cars and "music with plenty of bass"

One of the biggest headaches for me was producing content for hero and background computers in the Probation Office. Several scenes take place in this large, open plan location at different times on different days, with multiple different types of computer. Making sure that our main characters' screens had relevant content on them with correct story information, dates and times; as well as providing enough non-distracting probation-y looking content so the background computers would be different every scene, was quite the task! (Thanks to the computer wizards at Revolver for making it all work!)

The office with a range of screens and paperwork on display (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

Anna's desktop (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

Details that probably no one noticed - while Joe is interviewing Watson, Watson's record is up on the screen and Watson's paper file is on the desk (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

The prison Processing Room with a modest 4 computers, was a breeze in comparison! The HMP Woodfield logo was a team effort, with me producing the initial design and Amanda amending the lettering from Toni's feedback

When we divided up the work, I somehow ended up with all the techy bits, including these mobile phone graphics. The story required everything from internet browsers, to music apps (with scrollable tracklist) to map apps, to messages. As well as designing the graphics, the hardest part of this was collecting all the cast images needed to make them real. Actress, Sophie Stone and I took about a million selfies in the quest for the perfect one and here you can see our Art Dept. Assistant Hayley Martin standing in as Young Carly! Again, credit to Revolver for making all this work.

The maps app on screen (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)

As with any job, there were many drinks brands to design

Our 'Blackflare' can wraps came out looking great and sadly I neglected to photograph them in their 6-pack box, which also looked very convincing, so you'll just have to take my word for it!

One of my beer bottles in action (Copyright BBC/Warp Films)