Apache Communications

We normally have three clocks on the wall. Telling the time in London, Paris and Dublin. Which is the same as London, but I do think sometimes you need to be reminded of that.

There are some that would have you believe that the second series of ‘I’m Alan Partridge‘ isn’t as good as the first. And they’d be right. However, to say that it’s no good at all would be demented. And this is an absolute belter, inspiring no less than three different designs on this website. Which I believe is a record for a single programme.

As far as Apache Communications goes – I’m not sure where it came from or where it went, as it’s only mentioned in one episode. Is it a subsidiary of Pear Tree Productions or a completely separate escapade? Either way, their setup is a very shoddy affair, given that Alan’s new house is being built. There’s no electricity and the toilet is broken. In fact, the toilet is *so* broken, the door is being used as a conference table. As discovered by Piet Morant, a South African man and head of Dante Fires. They hold a meeting to discuss Dante’s upcoming awards event which Alan is due to host. Without being too spoiler-y it goes terribly badly due to a spiky metal railing incident, a sequence that I personally feel is up there with the very best of Partridge. Bold claims.

Now, before I get onto the design, I’d like to point out that there *is* a logo for Apache in the show. It’s at the front of the lectern when he does his presentation. It’s a rectangular affair, half white and half red with a helicopter emblazoned on it with the name stylised as ‘APache’ for fairly obvious reasons. Given that all of this happened tweny plus years ago, I’m bringing Apache into the present – sort of a modern day view of the company if it had survived longer than a single day.

So with the chopper in mind, the symbol to the left of the text signifies the blades of a helicopter. In fact, this episode features the monologue from Michael regarding hunting down his chemistry teacher Mr Cragg and Tom Donaldson in an Apache attack helicopter. And at the end of the show they discuss the baby H of his terribly drawn helicopter landing pad that Alan actually enjoys thanks to being on morphine. The text itself is inspired by a comms brand that aren’t O2, EE, T mobile, Orange and others.