221101 Voyager
Established Member
Oh dear! If this is a sign of things to come, it's not gonna look good.
I think that tweet shows how to ruin a design icon!
-
Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Great British Railways: Livery, branding and appearance?
- Thread starter Bletchleyite
- Start date
- Status
I think that tweet shows how to ruin a design icon!
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
221101 Voyager
Established Member
Glad I'm not the only one who thinks that.
Absolutely, why mess with a perfectly nice logo? I think the design agency are desperate to show they've made "something new" so they can charge more!
Thing is, it's not just a nice logo, it has the elusive quality that any graphic designer would kill to replicate. Universal recognition. In the commercial world, companies know the value of this when they have it. A logo everyone knows which doesn't need words is priceless. You won't be seeing Nike, Shell or Mercedes changing their logos. Elsewhere in the railway world I doubt there are people credibly suggesting changing or ditching either of the SNCB or DB logos. But then we are the land of Consignia and Centrica, I suppose.
221101 Voyager
Established Member
That's a superb point, that is also absolutely right.
Annetts key
Established Member
Personally, I don’t get why we have such ‘fashions’ with logos, company identities and railway liveries. Are people so totally vain in thinking that a new logo, or livery makes the seats more comfortable, the train more reliable or make it go faster?
I understand why politicians may like it (look at what I/we’ve done), but how much has all the changes in uniforms, the sign changes, the document changes, the livery changes etc. cost the tax payer and the passengers / freight customers over the years?
Use the BR double arrow logo as it was before privatisation occurred. Dump the graphic design agencies, dump all the existing liveries. Pick a nice basic uncluttered livery from BR days for all trains and lets get back to trying to run a good service for the passengers and the freight customers.
Although please note, I see no need to a rush to waste money by immediately sending trains off to have the new livery applied until the existing livery is worn or faded.
I understand why politicians may like it (look at what I/we’ve done), but how much has all the changes in uniforms, the sign changes, the document changes, the livery changes etc. cost the tax payer and the passengers / freight customers over the years?
Use the BR double arrow logo as it was before privatisation occurred. Dump the graphic design agencies, dump all the existing liveries. Pick a nice basic uncluttered livery from BR days for all trains and lets get back to trying to run a good service for the passengers and the freight customers.
Although please note, I see no need to a rush to waste money by immediately sending trains off to have the new livery applied until the existing livery is worn or faded.
My tumble dryer says "made in Great Britain" on its control panel. Does that make it, or me, a "faux patriot?"
As others have said, this self-loathing just doesn't exist elsewhere in the word to the extent it does here.
the sniper
Established Member
- Joined
- 4 Sep 2007
- Messages
- 3,499
Many countries manage to avoid manufacturing the kind of tacky nationalism that the Conservatives seem to specialise in churning out during the Boris era.
the sniper
Established Member
- Joined
- 4 Sep 2007
- Messages
- 3,499
Has it got a big Union Jack painted on the side?
birchesgreen
Established Member
Its marketing, and it works. Otherwise it wouldn't be the mega-billion industry it is worldwide.
Annetts key
Established Member
Ahh, are you saying that I’m the only one it doesn’t work on then?
You aren't the only person on this thread.
You must have seen this, given it was a reply to your post:
"Totally agree. You can see there are quite a few posters on this topic who sneer about the temerity of calling the new organisation 'Great British'...No doubt they would rather the trains were painted red with hammer and sickle symbols plastered over each carriage..."
birchesgreen
Established Member
It works on everyone, whether they admit it or not
Then don't throw my comments in with your "no Union Jack bed = commie" verdict.
Glad I'm not the only one who thinks that.
Absolutely, why mess with a perfectly nice logo? I think the design agency are desperate to show they've made "something new" so they can charge more!
Well when I looked at the report I just thought "Nice to see more of the BR logo" and never even noticed that it had been modified.
I can't see the point in fiddling with it but it's too subtle for me to notice.
According to the twitter thread someone pointed to above they will no longer have slightly different versions for light on dark and vice versa. I believe the reason for different versions is so that they appear the same. Maybe the modern thought is that they shouldn't need to look the same. Or maybe they were wrong then about how we percieve things.
I really don't like the RDG version though. It looks misproportioned to me, though of course I've no way of knowing if that's just because it's not what I'm used to. And it just doesn't look right in multiple colours and I don't really care that it's supposed to represent the railways working together and including "a colour that every part of the rail industry can point to and say, “that’s ours”."
But apparently the original designer likes it.
And I suspect that if BR still existed it would probably have altered it by now.
Well, it looks weird to me and ruins the clean lines of the original. It's especially bad on the dark background, as those little white "tabs" just stick out. Feels like they felt they needed to alter it on principal, so did that. Perhaps some constructive feedback may persuade them to reconsider. We can only hope.
Maybe I've misunderstood what you're referring to, but the image I've seen that had white ends to the horizontal line was a composite showing the new logo in red, overlaid over the light-on-dark version of the old one.
So they are just showing that the logo is now a bit shorter than it was before (or if you scale it to the same length, then it's a bit taller).
The actual logo (unlike the RDG version) doesn't seem to include different colours.
221101 Voyager
Established Member
Yeah, but at the end of the day, pretty much every station has had one somewhere since the mid 60s and it's not been changed, as there is nothing wrong with it, it's highly recognisable and is an iconic design so what on earth possessed them to mess with it I'll never know!
It's a massive waste of money on something that didn't need doing!
I hope they don't waste even more money by replacing all the double arrows signs with this hideous new design!
The report itself showed how nice and timeless the Double Arrow has been.
I hope for an SBB style livery. Simple and classy.
Pushing for NSE to be back I find to be stuck in the past. The logo is dated, the livery is too (as much as I loved it on the Networkers). Downham Market is nice and all, but do we really want the entire SE to look like that? Same for InterCity. I'd like an updated Swallow logo, especially for HS2, but going back to full on 1980s BR branding isn't going to happen, nor should it.
The GBR name does feel like Tory British nationalism, simply because they have form for it. A lot of people simply don't want to fly a UK flag because they aren't British unionists or find it OTT, and that's OK - we are supposed to be a democracy with individual nations after all. Calling them unpatriotic or "commies", as if this is 1960s USA, just hardens the view of some that the biggest union flag wavers are an intolerant bunch. Sometimes I think it's only the flag/"we're the best" that keeps the USA together, and that's what Westminster (mistakingly) think they can do here, along with the "our culture is under threat" nonsense.
In reality, GBR will probably just be referred to as "GBR" and "British Rail" by the average person, because it's easy to do so.
For the logo, I expect something like:
Double | Great British Railways
Arrow | Southern
I do wonder when the brand will start being rolled out. As a few stations are planned to open within the next 2 years, it'd be sensible to start there...
I hope for an SBB style livery. Simple and classy.
Pushing for NSE to be back I find to be stuck in the past. The logo is dated, the livery is too (as much as I loved it on the Networkers). Downham Market is nice and all, but do we really want the entire SE to look like that? Same for InterCity. I'd like an updated Swallow logo, especially for HS2, but going back to full on 1980s BR branding isn't going to happen, nor should it.
The GBR name does feel like Tory British nationalism, simply because they have form for it. A lot of people simply don't want to fly a UK flag because they aren't British unionists or find it OTT, and that's OK - we are supposed to be a democracy with individual nations after all. Calling them unpatriotic or "commies", as if this is 1960s USA, just hardens the view of some that the biggest union flag wavers are an intolerant bunch. Sometimes I think it's only the flag/"we're the best" that keeps the USA together, and that's what Westminster (mistakingly) think they can do here, along with the "our culture is under threat" nonsense.
In reality, GBR will probably just be referred to as "GBR" and "British Rail" by the average person, because it's easy to do so.
For the logo, I expect something like:
Double | Great British Railways
Arrow | Southern
I do wonder when the brand will start being rolled out. As a few stations are planned to open within the next 2 years, it'd be sensible to start there...
I too like the 1960s double arrow, and it has survived in situ outside many a station (wondering what %?) but so what? If it were down to me I would keep it- it works. it's there, why spend money unnnecessarily- three good reasons. I also liked the 'swallow' (was it swift?) and NSE (including the driving forces behind those). So why change? Because that's what poiticians are for- to distance them from some things, while remembering and reviving 'the good old days', as per 'Reversing Beeching'. Berating BA for removing the flag from the British 'flag-carrier' and 'British' from the name 'worked' for a former PM. Maybe the 'new' logo is being 'run up the flagpole' to market-test reaction?
I also liked Rapido when first seeing it in Italy as a youth- until I saw IIRC that it demanded a higher fare- maybe something like that for HS2?
And Royal Oak for OOC, if it weren't already in use- though Embankment/ Charing X/ Trafalgar Square/ Strand have come and gone and moved around ...
Or as Victoria wasn't Victoria before Victoria ... maybe Elizabeth; after all the Victoria Line does serve Victoria ...
and maybe the typeface should be New (Boris) Johnson?
Yes, the white ends and the weird shadow. It adds nothing beneficial to me.
Just a reminder that this thread is for the discussion of possible Great British Railways branding and appearance. If anyone wants to discuss anything else then they are welcome to start or find another appropriate thread.
221101 Voyager
Established Member
Thank you.
It was just a quick idea I came up with, an idea of which I would've gifted to the GBR for free, as I love the railway that much!
You say that, but what about the likes of germany who has had the same White with red stripe ICE livery on their intercity trains since the 90s?
It don't look old on their trains, so we could have something similar by reviving our old Intercity, Network southeast and regional railways liveries and branding, but just altered slightly to bring it up to date a bit!
Exactly.
I've never seen a national rail station without the classic double arrows somewhere on signage.
Thank you.
It was just a quick idea I came up with, an idea of which I would've gifted to the GBR for free, as I love the railway that much!
You say that, but what about the likes of germany who has had the same White with red stripe ICE livery on their intercity trains since the 90s?
It don't look old on their trains, so we could have something similar by reviving our old Intercity, Network southeast and regional railways liveries and branding, but just altered slightly to bring it up to date a bit!
Exactly.
I've never seen a national rail station without the classic double arrows somewhere on signage.
The only stations I can think of without it are London Overground stations not served by any other TOC, where some stations had it removed on rebranding, and some (new) stations have never had one.
YorksLad12
Established Member
On the double arrow: if you hadn't been told it had been changed, would you have noticed? Apart from the colours, the RDG version already has slightly altered dimensions.
This interview with the designer of the double arrow might be interesting to some: https://www.creativereview.co.uk/british-rail-logo/
This interview with the designer of the double arrow might be interesting to some: https://www.creativereview.co.uk/british-rail-logo/
Yes, I'd have noticed - but I'd have thought someone was trying, and failing, to add a 3-dimensional quality to it. It will work badly (i.e. it won't!) for any actual 3-dimensional double arrow sign, and there are lots and lots of them about already.
- Status