Animated LEXI

24 August 2016

Channel 4 will also welcome back an improved and more advanced animated LEXI – that graphic on-screen that memorably brought explanation of the classifications of the Paralympic Sport in 2012 – with a new three dimensional animation replacing the majority of on-screen text.

The graphical system provides the audience with a more in-depth understanding by illustrating what types of impairment are in the class and why they are grouped together for a particular sport.

This is where LEXI can help:

The easy to follow system is made up of colour coded graphics that illustrate disability/impairment types within sporting classes. The impact the impairment has on each sport are illustrated using of a colour palette: green denoting no impairment, yellow - low, orange - moderate and red –high.

Everything is designed to be intuitive so in addition, missing limbs are shown as just that -a missing limb, short stature (dwarfism) is illustrated by a smaller figure and learning disability is illustrated by applying the colour palette to the head.

The graphics will be used ahead of Paralympic races to indicate which disabilities are included in a particular event, for example, a T44 race in the track in Athletics or S6 in Swimming.

The LEXI concept was invented by Paralympic gold medal winning swimmer, Giles Long MBE and has the backing of the International Paralympics Committee, the British Paralympic Association and Seb Coe, Chair of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.

LEXI will be applied to coverage of Athletics, Swimming, Cycling, Wheelchair Rugby, Wheelchair Basketball and Football 7-a-side.

Channel 4 will also air a sketch during the opening ceremony which will reveal how the new voice of LEXI was 'discovered'. In the build up to Rio, Channel 4 has featured a series of comedy sketches featuring stars who have 'auditioned' to be the voice of LEXI but, for various reasons, they just haven't quite got what it takes. 'Applicants' so far have included Joanna Lumley, Hugh Bonneville and Jon Snow. The celebrity who will actually voice the descriptions of LEXI classifications will be revealed on 7 September.