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New Logo for Northern Trains LTD

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Chiltern006

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NT is to have a new logo. same n in the purple circle but the 'northern' part in a rounded upper case font (VAG Rounded I believe)
 
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py_megapixel

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NT is to have a new logo. same n in the purple circle but the 'northern' part in a rounded upper case font (VAG Rounded I believe)
Oh I saw that on Twitter, thought it was a joke! If you're going to go to the effort of rebranding then why just capitalise the name and do nothing else?
 

43096

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NT is to have a new logo. same n in the purple circle but the 'northern' part in a rounded upper case font (VAG Rounded I believe)
So the idea of branding transferring over when franchises change hands goes up in smoke. Ironically, it is the DfT's own operator of last resort that does it. You just couldn't make this stuff up.
 

Harvey B

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NT is to have a new logo. same n in the purple circle but the 'northern' part in a rounded upper case font (VAG Rounded I believe)
Oh I saw that on Twitter, thought it was a joke! If you're going to go to the effort of rebranding then why just capitalise the name and do nothing else?
So the idea of branding transferring over when franchises change hands goes up in smoke. Ironically, it is the DfT's own operator of last resort that does it. You just couldn't make this stuff up.

I've seen that arriva Apperantly owned the copyright to the Previous Northern font and its Probably also because they use the same font for their other operations too (I.E Cross Country and their Bus operations)
 

_toommm_

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I've seen that arriva Apperantly owned the copyright to the Previous Northern font and its Probably also because they use the same font for their other operations too (I.E Cross Country and their Bus operations)

Isn't the old 'northern' logo font just Comic Sans surely? If not, it's extremely similar.
 

Harvey B

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Isn't the old 'northern' logo font just Comic Sans surely? If not, it's extremely similar.
I don't think its comic sans but whatever font it is I think Arriva owned the font (or at least the word "Northern" in that Font)
And this is proof that arriva uses the same font for its other companies
This was the old Northen font northern-railway-vector-logo.png

This is Arriva's current font 1097435060829456038_1097435060829456038.png
 

Harvey B

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Im creating this thread because I think the Northern Unit Refurbishments Is becoming overwhelmed with posts about the new logo
 

py_megapixel

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I bet they paid an advertising agency £50k for the one they have chosen!
I'd love to be paid £50k for doing this!:
79350


Honestly though I'd happily license it to them cheaply just to have something nicer to look at.
 

TRAX

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I absolutely agree with you there. Here is another version which I created in less that 5 minutes which I massively prefer over the proposed redesign.
View attachment 79350
I don't really see how adding 'Trains' and changing the font of the wording so that it doesn't match that of the 'n' logo makes a better design. In fact, it's worse because the message is the same, you just added a word and removed the consistency (the fact that one font is used) of the real new logo. Design isn't all about aesthetics. It's done with a fair bit of thinking involved, and even if the end product looks cheap to you, it doesn't mean it is.
 

Neptune

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I don't think its comic sans but whatever font it is I think Arriva owned the font (or at least the word "Northern" in that Font)
And this is proof that arriva uses the same font for its other companies
This was the old Northen font View attachment 79367

This is Arriva's current font View attachment 79366
I don’t think the font is the same looking at the letter ‘r’.
 

prod_pep

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I don’t think the font is the same looking at the letter ‘r’.

Indeed. They are completely different fonts.

This idea that the Northern and Arriva logos share the same typeface has been debunked before on here.
 

MML

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I'd suggest nORTHERN.
Got to waste as much money on branding as possible, that way there's nothing left for the passengers.
 

py_megapixel

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I don't really see how adding 'Trains' and changing the font of the wording so that it doesn't match that of the 'n' logo makes a better design. In fact, it's worse because the message is the same, you just added a word and removed the consistency (the fact that one font is used) of the real new logo.
I'm not sure I understand your argument here. I didn't remove any consistency because the consistency was never there in the first place - the lowercase N of VAG Rounded is completely different to the lowercase N used in the logo. There is also inconsitency in the fact that the logo uses lowercase while the brand name uses uppercase. The fact that the font used in the brand name is much thinner than the one used in the logo doesn't help.

If you want I'll go through why I made the changes I did:
  • Changing the font from VAG Rounded to Inter - VAG Rounded looked a little childish to me; Inter is the closest I could find to what is used in Northern's on-board signage, plus I felt that that the thickness was closer to that of the "n" in the Northern logo

  • Changing the logo to a square - Inter is quite square-looking, so I felt it matched better to have the logo in a square.

  • Adding the word "Trains." There were a few reasons for this, the most obvious being that the square looked like it would lend itself well to being a line break (like the edge of a piece of paper), and also that having two identically sized Ns in a row didn't look particularly neat in my opinion. Finally it provides a clear differentiation from "Northern by Arriva"

I know this justification isn't particularly good but honestly it was a few minutes spent as a proof of concept, to create something which I considered more attractive. I didn't put loads of effor into it. I am sure a proper design team, given the chance, could come up with something better than my admittedly rather inconsitent design, and more to the point much better than just capitalising the name.
 

185

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NorthernSpirit_logo.gif
I kinda like this fantasy logo. Image if this made it onto a real train. :smile:
 

Bletchleyite

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View attachment 79399
I kinda like this fantasy logo. Image if this made it onto a real train. :smile:

Now that was the butt of a lot of jokes - mostly around the subject of whether Northern Spirit was an alcoholic beverage available from the trolley service (remember those?)

The burgundy and gold TPE version of the livery was, however, one of the nicest liveries I have ever known, at least before First wrecked it with the blue stickers. Would love to see a version of that (with gold doors, I guess) back. The blue, light-wood-effect and burgundy interior was super-classy, too.
 

py_megapixel

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Is that what they've actually done? Seriously?

They need to ditch the "sad face", it's Twitter-bait.
nope! that isn't what they've done. It's worse. That's my improved design.
What they've actually done is simply change the font to one which doesn't fit the logo, and capitalise the name.
 

SteveyBee131

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...

The burgundy and gold TPE version of the livery was, however, one of the nicest liveries I have ever known, at least before First wrecked it with the blue stickers. Would love to see a version of that (with gold doors, I guess) back. The blue, light-wood-effect and burgundy interior was super-classy, too.
Absolutely wholeheartedly agree! It was quite something. The mostly white livery of the present will take alot longer to grow on me :s
 

Domh245

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The difficulty they have is trying to 'refresh' the brand without actually changing it. The 'sad face' doesn't need changing (from a legal point of view!) and indeed, changing it would massively complicate the whole rebranding process as a result of how much it's plastered over the trains (4 - 7 'n's per vehicle side!), - just changing the font of the logo makes for a much simpler rebrand. Whether they should have gone all out and developed a whole new brand is another matter!
 
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