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Stations rebranded to Great British Railways design / Rail Alphabet 2

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thomalex

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25 Aug 2021
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That platform sign is a bit of and odd one with arrows pointing two ways with small pictograms. It's not immediately clear to me which way I'm supposed to go.

If I'm reading it correctly the escalator is to the left, surely this is the main flow, so should carry a large arrow. The lift to the right should then be a smaller arrow with the word Lift.
 

Recessio

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Hopefully the new signs will stand out more than the old blue ones, and will make way finding clearer at London Bridge. I always struggle there, whoever designed the layout of the ticket barriers a) had never used a train before and b) was blind.

As LBG is a major terminal, does this mean NR are now going to roll this out at the rest of the major stations that they operate? So far I only remember seeing new signage at Waterloo, is it at any other London or NR stations?
 

jon0844

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I thought the signs were pretty clear at LBG, and way better laid out than when St Pancras reopened, or when Heathrow T5 first opened.

Assuming the signs aren't being moved, I'm not sure how this changes anything beyond a new brand identity?
 

jhy44

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Bromsgrove (Worcestershire)
. I always struggle there, whoever designed the layout of the ticket barriers a) had never used a train before and b) was blind.
Hahahaha

I agree though, I’ve only used it a few times and also have ended up not being able to see where my platform is, and then have not been able to work out where the gate line actually is! Given it’s often a place for tight connections it does need to be clearer.

It’s a bit like Birmingham New Street in that the gatelines and ticketed vs non-ticketed mapping is more like a chaotic Tetris screen rather than the traditional horizontal line one expects, I think that’s the cause of most of the woe.

Hopefully these clearer signs make things easier.
 
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Recessio

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Speaking of St Pancras, will that get the new signage? And airport stations? Or will they keep their own HS1 and Airport-style signage instead?
 

urbophile

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CarrotPie

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Does the 'DOWN' sign in the second photograph refer to the lift? In which case, why is the arrow not pointing diagonally towards the door? And why is it in upper-case when all other signs are in lower-case? And if it doesn't refer to the lift it is extremely confusing.
The down sign refers to line directions (i.e. away from London). It's for the benefit of dispatch staff. There's a light to show the CD/RA status below it too.
 

Via Bank

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Does the 'DOWN' sign in the second photograph refer to the lift? In which case, why is the arrow not pointing diagonally towards the door? And why is it in upper-case when all other signs are in lower-case? And if it doesn't refer to the lift it is extremely confusing.
At a guess: that looks like it's for staff reference, given its proximity to a signal indicator. "Down" likely refers to the Down direction of the line.
 

bnc2018

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This must be one of the naffest implementations yet - the Platforms 4&5 sign is terrible. Random amounts of whitespace around the edges, that makes it looks different from all the others. Random font sizes where neither match the size of the arrows. Why are the arrows on separate signs? Why is there a black border around each individual section of the sign? What happened to the double arrow going next to platform direction signs? Also, do we really need four signs saying Lift next to each other?

It barely looks anything like the design guidance - which is especially bad given the guidance was originally made for the NR managed stations.
 

Meerkat

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Did a recent study not prove otherwise? I remember someone saying something like that earlier on in the thread, anyway. Mind you, I think the white on black at Birmingham New Street looks great.
There was a study that 'proved' black on white showed up more, but I think their methodology was very flawed. They effectively created an average background - which is clearly going to be a greyish blur and make white stand out. But backgrounds aren't greyish blurs - there is loads of white about, and lots of black on white signs and adverts.
The white on dark blue looked much classier and stood out much better.
And even if they go with white it must have a coloured border to make it stand out from the backgrounds, but their fundamentalist 'no variations' standardisation wont allow it.
 

Busman

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4 Mar 2017
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Please tell me these aren’t going to happen. We’re either having a national network or we’re not. The whole design is poor in my opinion in the first place, then if you add short lived TOC logos it just becomes a complete mess. Look at how many times LNER has rebranded over the years, NX, Virgin, East Coast, LNER.

Just give the whole network one brand, maybe with different colours for specific purposes like airport colouring for airport stations, but give it one coherent logo. How about errrr the double arrow?

Amen to this.
 

thomalex

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25 Aug 2021
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Leeds

Think these look pretty good and good to see the double arrow being used on the sign as intended. I can understand the complaint there's a bit too much white space but I guess the posts are existing and a sign has to be made to fit, it looks quite well proportioned to me.

The T logo is also fine and similar to what has been done in Manchester for stations there. Having a local transport operator logo which sits to the right of the name where applicable seems a good solution to me.

GFq73zIWEAAcKNa.jpeg

Source https://twitter.com/WorrallLea/status/1754921579555835943
 
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jamiearmley

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JaJaWa

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Recessio

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Meerkat

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Why have they decided that every single platform at Hull and Morley needs a (G)BR logo? It's a train station, of course the platform will have trains! I'd love to know who signed off on that
Maybe it’s because their new format is so bland that they need to make it clear which signs are railway ones.
 

Busman

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4 Mar 2017
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Well I have to say, the London Bridge signage replacement is going lightning quick ....
 

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