Stations rebranded to Great British Railways design / Rail Alphabet 2

[BluePenguin]

Have to say this looks terrible.
Hardly any effort has gone into this.
They should have stuck to the much nicer blue signs at NR managed stations.

Also I think the green signs used on Southern look really smart, they go well with the green colour scheme of the stations

+1

I completely agree

 

[HarryL]

Have to say this looks terrible.
Hardly any effort has gone into this.
They should have stuck to the much nicer blue signs at NR managed stations.

Also I think the green signs used on Southern look really smart, they go well with the green colour scheme of the stations

On the contrary, a lot of effort has gone into this, it has been in motion since at least mid-to-late 2018. Ultimately they landed on black and white after a range of tests and determined it to best meet all requirements.

I feel a lot of people miss the context of why white was chosen as the base colour. A dark colour was an option but after being tested it was determined to blend into the surroundings too much, so they needed one that contrasted with it better and it was either white, or neon colours that did that. The Northern examples aren't particularly the proper application nor do they meet the full guidelines for the finished product, I rather suspect it's being watched over by Northern management directly with little to no say by Network Rail so guidelines are somewhat being skimmed through to say the least.

 

[Grumpy Git]

I feel a lot of people miss the context of why white was chosen as the base colour. A dark colour was an option but after being tested it was determined to blend into the surroundings too much, so they needed one that contrasted with it better and it was either white, or neon colours that did that.

Hallelujah

 

[urbophile]

'Branding' has gone berserk over the last couple of decades of privatisation. The one thing which has survived the nonsense has been the BR double arrow, which has become the recognisable symbol of rail travel throughout the UK, just like the LT roundel across Greater London. That, and a consistent house style of typography, is all the branding we need.

 

[Bletchleyite]

On the contrary, a lot of effort has gone into this, it has been in motion since at least mid-to-late 2018. Ultimately they landed on black and white after a range of tests and determined it to best meet all requirements.

I feel a lot of people miss the context of why white was chosen as the base colour. A dark colour was an option but after being tested it was determined to blend into the surroundings too much, so they needed one that contrasted with it better and it was either white, or neon colours that did that. The Northern examples aren't particularly the proper application nor do they meet the full guidelines for the finished product, I rather suspect it's being watched over by Northern management directly with little to no say by Network Rail so guidelines are somewhat being skimmed through to say the least.

I think white works fine*, but you do need a simple colour band or border to make it look attractive. Examples of white based signage I think looks very attractive indeed are GWR, TfW and ScotRail.

* IF it is kept clean. Unlike colour backgrounds it soon becomes obvious if like BR they never bother.

 

[ExRes]

'Branding' has gone berserk over the last couple of decades of privatisation. The one thing which has survived the nonsense has been the BR double arrow, which has become the recognisable symbol of rail travel throughout the UK, just like the LT roundel across Greater London. That, and a consistent house style of typography, is all the branding we need.

Agree with you 100%, if only there was a financial bottom line available for all the ridiculous branding and livery changes over the last 30 years

 

[Bletchleyite]

Agree with you 100%, if only there was a financial bottom line available for all the ridiculous branding and livery changes over the last 30 years

Probably not that much, as repainting needs to happen anyway, and marketing has financial benefits too.

You can paint your house magnolia or go for colours and change them periodically, the cost is similar.

 

[nlogax]

Probably not that much, as repainting needs to happen anyway, and marketing has financial benefits too.

TOC marketing signage for stations where passengers have no say in the operating company they have to use always seemed pretty pointless. You either take the train or you don't. A station sign that reads 'Wibbletown' with a TOC corporate logo or typeface makes no difference to anything outside of the very occasional edge case.

 

[Peter Sarf]

If signs on stations have to have coloured edges and coloured backdrounds then why do most books get printed with black letters on a white background ?. Aswer - it is to make them EASY TO READ.

I have got my favourite colour now where can I use it !.

On the contrary, a lot of effort has gone into this, it has been in motion since at least mid-to-late 2018. Ultimately they landed on black and white after a range of tests and determined it to best meet all requirements.

I feel a lot of people miss the context of why white was chosen as the base colour. A dark colour was an option but after being tested it was determined to blend into the surroundings too much, so they needed one that contrasted with it better and it was either white, or neon colours that did that. The Northern examples aren't particularly the proper application nor do they meet the full guidelines for the finished product, I rather suspect it's being watched over by Northern management directly with little to no say by Network Rail so guidelines are somewhat being skimmed through to say the least.

Yes... It is for signs not works of art.

'Branding' has gone berserk over the last couple of decades of privatisation. The one thing which has survived the nonsense has been the BR double arrow, which has become the recognisable symbol of rail travel throughout the UK, just like the LT roundel across Greater London. That, and a consistent house style of typography, is all the branding we need.

You are right and the branding was arguably pointless before and is now absolutely pointless.

I think white works fine*, but you do need a simple colour band or border to make it look attractive. Examples of white based signage I think looks very attractive indeed are GWR, TfW and ScotRail.

* IF it is kept clean. Unlike colour backgrounds it soon becomes obvious if like BR they never bother.

Lets not gild the lilly. The signs are there to be read not admired. Instead spend the money saved on painting the station buildings and getting rid of the weeds growing out of the walls.

TOC marketing signage for stations where passengers have no say in the operating company they have to use always seemed pretty pointless. You either take the train or you don't. A station sign that reads 'Wibbletown' with a TOC corporate logo or typeface makes no difference to anything outside of the very occasional edge case.

Yes was most often pointless and is now definitely completely and utterly pointless.

 

[Deerfold]

If signs on stations have to have coloured edges and coloured backdrounds then why do most books get printed with black letters on a white background ?. Aswer - it is to make them EASY TO READ.

I have got my favourite colour now where can I use it !.

Yes... It is for signs not works of art.

You are right and the branding was arguably pointless before and is now absolutely pointless.

Lets not gild the lilly. The signs are there to be read not admired. Instead spend the money saved on painting the station buildings and getting rid of the weeds growing out of the walls.

Yes was most often pointless and is now definitely completely and utterly pointless.

Surely the comparison should be between book covers and signs? Most books aren't designed to be read from 15 metres away.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Surely the comparison should be between book covers and signs? Most books aren't designed to be read from 15 metres away.

No but both are meant to be easy to read. The signs have to use bigger letters to cope with the distance reading requirement.

The book cover is to help sell the book. If you are on the station or in the train you have already been sold the train journey.

Ohh that is a nice pretty station sign - think I will get off here and forget the rest of my journey !.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Lets not gild the lilly. The signs are there to be read not admired. Instead spend the money saved on painting the station buildings and getting rid of the weeds growing out of the walls.

Do both. The whole station environment package has to be welcoming, clean and tidy. All the things none of them were in 1980s BR days that people hark back to when supporting this drab, boring signage scheme.

Ohh that is a nice pretty station sign - think I will get off here and forget the rest of my journey !.

You miss the point.

"The station is clean, tidy and attractive in appearance, that makes me feel safe, happy and comfortable using the train".

Is your house perchance magnolia and off-brown carpets throughout as per the "standard" rental house look? Inoffensive but utterly boring. If so this might explain your view, if not why don't you want stations looking as attractive as your lounge?

I have stopped at Rugby services a few times recently, a brand new site. It is bright and attractive, with clear but colourful signage - I'm sure it wasn't Stenning that did it as he sticks to buses but it's that sort of look. One thing that occurred to me is "why aren't railway station concourses this nice?" Perhaps you'd prefer the drab concrete of Charnock Richard, Watford Gap etc?

Stenning's marketing package for London Midland was an absolute masterpiece, making a boring commuter railway really attractive looking to leisure traffic. LNR's is decidedly amateurish in comparison. All white would just be "right, it's a boring commuter service, Avanti (or your car) is over there".

Why don't Ryanair just paint their planes white as it's cheapest? Because even to a rock-bottom budget operation marketing and branding is really important.

 

[185]

...the original pictograms/icons such as the Stockport viaduct...

View attachment 101915

Would say Stockport's viaduct has no place in an icon depicting Manchester, should be a bee, or something from the city... not something in jolly hockey sticks Cheshire

 

[Bletchleyite]

Would say Stockport's viaduct has no place in an icon depicting Manchester, should be a bee, or something from the city... not something in jolly hockey sticks Cheshire

While the emblem was on the rubbish bins and locals knew about it, the bee wasn't quite as strongly associated with the city when Picc's refurb was done in the early 2000s (in some ways it more represented Boddington's bitter). That association nationally has been very much built by campaigning after the Arena bombing a few years ago.

Does the viaduct not represent Castlefield towards Ardwick?

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

Do both. The whole station environment package has to be welcoming, clean and tidy. All the things none of them were in 1980s BR days that people hark back to when supporting this drab, boring signage scheme.



You miss the point.

"The station is clean, tidy and attractive in appearance, that makes me feel safe, happy and comfortable using the train".

Is your house perchance magnolia and off-brown carpets throughout as per the "standard" rental house look? Inoffensive but utterly boring. If so this might explain your view, if not why don't you want stations looking as attractive as your lounge?

I have stopped at Rugby services a few times recently, a brand new site. It is bright and attractive, with clear but colourful signage - I'm sure it wasn't Stenning that did it as he sticks to buses but it's that sort of look. One thing that occurred to me is "why aren't railway station concourses this nice?" Perhaps you'd prefer the drab concrete of Charnock Richard, Watford Gap etc?

Stenning's marketing package for London Midland was an absolute masterpiece, making a boring commuter railway really attractive looking to leisure traffic. LNR's is decidedly amateurish in comparison. All white would just be "right, it's a boring commuter service, Avanti (or your car) is over there".

Why don't Ryanair just paint their planes white as it's cheapest? Because even to a rock-bottom budget operation marketing and branding is really important.

Honestly I have to agree. It’s like they’re saying - there won’t be multiple companies to differentiate from now, so what’s the need for a brand identity?

Makes me think if the government took over Tesco, Sainsburys and ASDA and just had a big white sign saying “SHOP” on the front. It’s awful.

 

[Domh245]

Aswer - it is to make them EASY TO READ.

The actual reason that books tend to be black and white is because it's cheap and quick with just the one ink, one set of printing equipment, 1/4 the print time of a full CYMK print etc. On the scale of a book publisher, saving that time and money absolutely makes sense. On something like this re-branding where you're printing on the order of 50,000 pieces of signage (~2500 stations, 20 signs on average per station) with a shelf life of at least a decade, you can stomach the additional production cost and time of adding a small amount of colour (especially if you just add the one colour) to make the sign less utterly drab.

A plain white sign with text on screams "we can't be arsed" - which is not really the sort of image that you want to project.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The actual reason that books tend to be black and white is because it's cheap and quick with just the one ink, one set of printing equipment, 1/4 the print time of a full CYMK print etc. On the scale of a book publisher, saving that time and money absolutely makes sense. On something like this re-branding where you're printing on the order of 50,000 pieces of signage (~2500 stations, 20 signs on average per station) with a shelf life of at least a decade, you can stomach the additional production cost and time of adding a small amount of colour (especially if you just add the one colour) to make the sign less utterly drab.

You don't even need to print it as part of the sign. A roll of coloured sticky backed plastic to put a coloured stripe along the bottom costs very little. OK, you'd want to use something better than electrical tape, but in bulk it wouldn't be costing you a lot more, it's hardly aircraft speed-tape. And someone who'd already done a few hundred signs would be able to apply it neatly in a few seconds per sign - roll it on and cut one end with a craft knife.

A plain white sign with text on screams "we can't be arsed" - which is not really the sort of image that you want to project.

Exactly, it's a marketing faux-pas. If it looks rubbish, people will think it is rubbish. And one thing 1980s BR with its mucky white signage and drab blue and grey trains looked was rubbish. It's amazing just how basic and poorly looked after it was compared with today, though to be fair that's also true of most areas of life.

Even Regional Railways days were a bit drab. If you can find a copy, watch Victoria Wood's Great Railway Journey - the whole thing was just depressing, a railway in decline doing the bare minimum it could be bothered to do, and a British holiday industry in its death throes. So different to today despite low-cost airlines being something that emerged rather later than it was filmed.

 

[Grumpy Git]

It's a bloody station sign for goodness sake, with the advent of GBR there is no need for branding. If I'm stood at station "A" I'm unlikely to walk to station "B" because their signs are "nicer".

Easy to read is the priority and that ties-in nicely with cheapest to produce, end of story.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's a bloody station sign for goodness sake, with the advent of GBR there is no need for branding. If I'm stood at station "A" I'm unlikely to walk to station "B" because their signs are "nicer".

You might well, however, choose to drive or fly instead if you felt the station environment was not pleasant.

Easy to read is the priority and that ties-in nicely with cheapest to produce, end of story.

Marketing is important. Even SBB, which very much feels like a piece of heavy infrastructure, has an attractive house style.

 

[HarryL]

You might well, however, choose to drive or fly instead if you felt the station environment was not pleasant.

Do people turn around and decide to drive if they walk into a station and see a plain looking sign though? There's still many black on white BR signs up across the network, that are also showing their age, and there doesn't appear to be any modal shift from it.

So far the only real world example of the new signage are the station name boards, which aren't supposed to be some big show and dance and are intended to display the basic location information in an easily identifiable and readable way. If a station needs flourishes to improve its appearance, that should be happening outside of the signage which isn't there to serve that purpose.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Do people turn around and decide to drive if they walk into a station and see a plain looking sign though?

No, but a drab environment will cloud their view of the railway and they may well consider other modes next time.

There's still many black on white BR signs up across the network, that are also showing their age, and there doesn't appear to be any modal shift from it.

There are hardly any that don't have a colour flash added. Indeed, the only ones I can think of are at Warrington Bank Quay, and those aren't original, they date from somewhere around 2010, VT did it because it was due to be done but they were on the way out (to the original First operation that didn't happen) so they weren't going to put branded signage up, so absent any other idea they used BR style.

So far the only real world example of the new signage are the station name boards, which aren't supposed to be some big show and dance and are intended to display the basic location information in an easily identifiable and readable way. If a station needs flourishes to improve its appearance, that should be happening outside of the signage which isn't there to serve that purpose.

I think attractive looking signage is a key part of the package. I love the GWR branding package, for example, it combines classic with modern in a really, really attractive way.

They really should forget all this and set Ray Stenning on GBR, he'd make a masterpiece. Some of his bus stuff can be a bit samey, but he can think outside the box if given the right brief - for example Stagecoach "beachball" including the excellent SWT branding package is his doing and isn't in his usual style at all, and London Midland's whole marketing package was absolutely genius in what it achieved.

 

[nlogax]

Exactly, it's a marketing faux-pas. If it looks rubbish, people will think it is rubbish. And one thing 1980s BR with its mucky white signage and drab blue and grey trains looked was rubbish. It's amazing just how basic and poorly looked after it was compared with today, though to be fair that's also true of most areas of life.

In BR days the net affect of drab, tired stations and mucky signage in conjunction with unreliable services was to drive passengers off the railways. Obviously that's no longer a factor in passenger numbers.

 

[Grumpy Git]

You might well, however, choose to drive or fly instead if you felt the station environment was not pleasant.

Manchester Airport is anything but pleasant, but unless I want to pay Avanti a small fortune to get to Heathrow, I don't have much choice.

 

[Peter Lanky]

Because rebranding will fix all the problems.

Network Rail >> Railtrack
Elizabeth Line >> Crossrail
DTuP >> NtFL >> DTP
COP >> COP
Job Centre Plus >> Dole Office

etc. etc.

I worked for the Manpower Services Commission and later Dept for Work and Pensions, and the management was always rebranding, with the excuse that it better represented it's relationship with the 'customers'. The customers didn't give a **** and to them it was always and still is 'The Dole'.

 

[Domh245]

"more than bare minimum" branding isn't about trying to tempt people onto the railway directly, but more widely about presenting a good image. If two candidates turned up for a job who were equally well qualified and interviewed equally well, but one was wearing jeans & a polo shirt, had messy hair and stubble, they'd make a less good impression than the other who was in an ironed shirt, smart trousers, was well groomed and had put aftershave on.

If the first impression people have of the railway "we're doing the bare minimum to get you from A to B" it sets that tone and clouds the judgement. If people get the impression that no effort is being put in, they'll view everything through that lens ("They didn't hold the connection for me, they clearly don't care"/"The trolley was understocked, they don't care about the passengers"/"The train was overcrowded, they just cram us in to rattly old cattle boxes"/"They put engineering works on the bank holiday and now I'm stuck on a bus") which eventually culminates in "I could take the train, but it was a bad experience last time so I'll take the car". That's not to say that a less bland sign solves all the issues and makes people only think of it positively, but it makes for a better first impression and changes the way in which subsequent interactions are perceived.

All that said, "bare minimum" does, sadly, reflect the railway in a number of situations so perhaps it's for the best that we just use white signage and black text. Whilst we're at it, paint the trains in battleship grey and rather than issuing train staff with uniform, just tell them "smart casual"

 

[Grumpy Git]

All that said, "bare minimum" does, sadly, reflect the railway in a number of situations so perhaps it's for the best that we just use white signage and black text. Whilst we're at it, paint the trains in battleship grey and rather than issuing train staff with uniform, just tell them "smart casual"

No "bare minimum" doesn't mean "unshaven", it means clear and concise in my book (i.e. black on white). The temporary signs are a poor effort, (they could have easily removed the underlying text with a £2 scraper and hot-air gun from B&Q), but at least they are ledigible and clean (at least for now)!

 

[Domh245]

No "bare minimum" doesn't mean "unshaven", it means clear and concise in my book (i.e. black on white). The temporary signs are a poor effort, (they could have easily removed the underlying text with a £2 scraper and hot-air gun from B&Q), but at least they are ledigible and clean (at least for now)!

The bit about unshaven is more about the importance of presenting a good image and making a good impression. You seem to be agreeing with me that black on white is "bare minimum", and I'm sure you'd agree that "bare minimum" is not really an image that a business should be presenting

 

[Grumpy Git]

The bit about unshaven is more about the importance of presenting a good image and making a good impression. You seem to be agreeing with me that black on white is "bare minimum", and I'm sure you'd agree that "bare minimum" is not really an image that a business should be presenting

GBR is a bloody transport service, I'm not going to ask then to redecorate my living room.

Look at it this way, one of your candidates (both clean shaven and equally qualified) has a nice crisp white shirt and the other is an Austin Powers lookalike, who gets the job?

 

[Whatshappin]

https://twitter.com/tpexpresstrains/status/1432671937751359489?s=21

not sure if this is new or old signage

 

[Grumpy Git]

https://twitter.com/tpexpresstrains/status/1432671937751359489?s=21

not sure if this is new or old signage

Well it looks "right" to me, the font weight looks bang-on.