Do you have any idea how many Doctor Who logos there have been over the years? We don’t, but we have picked our five favourites…
5) The Steven Moffat logo
The Doctor Who logo adopted by Steven Moffat was one of the few to incorporate the TARDIS – or at least, attempt it. With this logo, we have an interesting DW ident that takes the shape of the famous police box and was cleverly included in the first Matt Smith title sequence.
However, this Doctor Who logo was not met with universal acclaim when it was released. The original version was ‘stacked,’ channelling some of the energy of the earliest Doctor Who logos from the 60s, and emblazoned with the classic Adobe Photoshop lens flare, which some considered ‘cheap-looking.’
But then, the Christopher Eccleston logo was covered in lens flares too, so maybe it was a subtle nod to the series’ history…
4) The diamond logo
The diamond Doctor Who logo is perhaps the most famous of them all. This was first introduced in 1974, and lasted some six years. It appeared at the start of Jon Pertwee’s last season, and disappeared towards the end of the Tom Baker era when the new producer John Nathan-Turner replaced it with something a little more 80s.
It’s an unusual shape, but this came about because of the new title sequence, which also debuted in Jon Pertwee’s last season. This featured a diamond-shaped passage that the camera travelled through, and the designers needed a logo that could easily slot inside. Thus, the new Doctor Who logo became a diamond.
And of all the logos, this one probably evokes the most nostalgia and affection. Showrunner Russell T Davies is clearly a fan, as he resurrected it for the show’s 60th anniversary and subsequent series. It became the new official Doctor Who logo in 2022.
Moreover, when the BBC started releasing the series on VHS in the mid 80s, this logo was chosen for the sleeve art. This may have been because the first story to be released was ‘Revenge of the Cybermen,’ and this adventure used the diamond logo in its titles. But at the same time, it’s one of the easier logos to fit onto a VHS spine. In fact, the BBC kept this logo on the video covers until the late 90s.
3) The Sylvester McCoy logo
For the most part, the Doctor Who logos have always reflected the time in which they were made, and this is certainly true of the logo which spanned the Sylvester McCoy era. The design is unashamedly 80s, and sits well in its computer-generated title sequence – a first for the series.
And after the show was cancelled in 1989, this logo was adopted for the subsequent Virgin book series which ran until the mid 90s. Beyond this, this particular Doctor Who logo has experienced little air time, and has rarely been used in any official branding. Could it be time for a revival?
2) The Jon Pertwee / Paul McGann logo
In the early days, it was traditional for Doctor Who logos to be ‘stacked,’ with the word Doctor appearing over a larger version of the word Who. The very earliest versions were quite simple; William Hartnell’s had a clean, sans serif font, whereas Troughton’s was serifed. (Does anyone know the names of these particular fonts…?)
The Jon Pertwee logo, however, was the first of the more stylised logos, with a ‘broken’ letter D and a curved letter H. Is this even a real font, or was it specially created for Doctor Who? Whatever the answer, it looks great, and it’s one of the few Doctor Who logos which hasn’t really dated. There is a timeless quality to this logo, and it was chosen by the producer Philip Segal to relaunch Doctor Who for an American audience with the TV movie in 1996.
Sadly, as you probably know, the TV movie didn’t lead to a brand new series as originally planned, but the logo stuck. The BBC kept it as the show’s official logo for another eight years, using it across its book, video and DVD ranges. Big Finish also used it on the cover art of its audio adventures, and a version of the logo was resurrected for the 50th anniversary, incorporating the ‘howlaround’ effect from the very first title sequence.
1) The 40th anniversary logo
Our favourite Doctor Who logo is something of a firefly. It only lasted for one year, having been introduced for the 40th anniversary celebrations in 2003. Because of this, it (probably) won’t be making another appearance anytime soon, but if any of us are around for the series’ 140th anniversary in the year 2103, we might see it again.
As you can see, this Doctor Who logo is a variant of the McGann version, which in turn is a variant of the logo from the Jon Pertwee era. It’s bright and distinctive, and cleverly incorporates the number 40 by chopping one of the ‘legs’ off the letter H. It looked great in print, and was the logo that rounded off the series’ VHS range in the same year with the boxset release of ‘The Reign of Terror’ and the (then) surviving episodes of ‘The Web of Fear‘ and ‘The Faceless Ones.’
It’s a shame that this Doctor Who logo couldn’t stick around for longer (although we accept that it doesn’t make much sense to celebrate the series’ 40th anniversary in 2025…)
But over to you, reader. Which Doctor Who logo is your favourite? And are there any versions you would add to this list? Let us know in the comments below.
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