There were a large number of applications of the previous standard livery, and I thought with the new standard livery, these inconsistencies would disappear over time. Unfortunately, it appears that isn't going to be the case
Agreed - there were some bad applications of the "beachball" livery - ideally the rear orange and red "swoops" were meant to extend below the white onto the dark blue, with the red finishing some distance behind the orange. Some applications have the orange finishing without intruding into the dark blue, some have the red and orange swoops finishing at the same "point", some have a thin white band between the red and orange, some have the red touching the orange...
...and the less said about the "swoops" at the front of buses, the better! Some absolute shockers there, no consistency over whether there's an orange swoop as well as the blue one at the front...
e.g. this Scania in Kirkcaldy looks like a cheap Chinese copy of a Stagecoach bus - the front blue swoop squiggling all over the place, the red at the rear finishing at a different level to the orange - amazing!
Stagecoach has started dispersing the all Scania N230UD "OmniCity" double decks that were new to the London operations to provincial locations. 15067/LX09 AEN, new to Selkent in April 2009, was seen in Kirkcaldy Bus Station last Tuesday, 10/09/19, in the Fife Scottish fleet (East Scotland).
www.flickr.com
So I'm not claiming that the old livery was perfect or uniform or that there was no reason to change it - I'm not hung up on it (I grew up in the "stripes" era, so have no particular attachment to "beachball").
I can see that the new colours look quite "fresh", it could be quite a nice combination (that said, I liked the yellow/ blue/ green First Edinburgh livery, twenty years ago). But it's been badly designed, doesn't suit the shape of a bus and can't be consistently applied - a shame, as it feels like an unforced error. Stagecoach used to be very good at liveries - look at how their three train liveries simply got across the message that they were all Stagecoach but different levels of speed/comfort.
Take
@tbtc and the mention of the various coach liveries. We have the X5, the Falcon, the Oxford Tube - there's no reason why they can't have a standard Stagecoach livery that can have the route/brand specifics added on. That's not the point - the issue is that they've elected to choose something that in no way looks premium....
I could see the logic of having one "high quality" branding for all coach operations and the "Gold" routes - say a black body to distinguish it - but Stagecoach have veered from one extreme (lots of different local branding) to the other ("one size fits all") - e.g. there was no reason why "Falcon" had to have a brand new identity - it's a nice colour scheme - but they could have used the same colours as the Oxford Tube or the X5 - which is why this "simplification" seems a bit OTT IMHO.
the design fails to make the leap from a concept to the physical application on the bus as you rightly illustrate with the white skirt or the sweep being broken up by the entrance door.
It's something that Ray Stenning and Best Impressions understand. Their designs are often criticised as samey but there are basic design rules (e.g. colour wheel) and the bus specific rules that strongly influence livery design. It's also that market knowledge that they use so they know the issues - where mud splashes up, how panels need to be replaced etc. Stuff that the Stagecoach managers that I know believe wasn't considered when this livery was agreed.
I feel Ray Stenning gets a lot of
unjustified criticism - with so many liveries around the UK and so many enthusiasts having access to Flickr etc, of course people are going to find similarities, but part of this will be because modern vehicles are becoming quite ugly, big chunky black sections of glazing/ bodywork (remember the days before 80% of the front of a double decker was black?). There's very little room to splash your identity.
But Best Impressions design liveries based on the realities of the shape of vehicles, the bits that get muddy, the bits that get damaged (you can have a fancy pattern of colours below the windows but it's generally a good idea to have a plain dark skirt since that's the bit that other vehicles will crash into, meaning panel replacement needs to be quite simple and something dark will cover up any dents/bashes).
I can see that a mainly plain white skirt would look fresh/ clean/ modern/ different to the design team, but even if you clean all your buses thoroughly overnight they'll look filthy by lunchtime as they cope with the puddles/ potholes/ spray. No point having a livery that looks fresh on paper but grimy in reality. But then there's no point in having a complicated whooshy livery where the swoops and curves are hidden by the big black chunks of windows/ doors.
