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New London Underground Sony roundels

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Ladder23

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News this morning, they look great! Won’t be up for long;

The Isle of Wight signage and engineering company, who make much of the iconic signage for London Underground, was commissioned by Transport for London to create four giant illuminated signs in the shape of the PlayStation console buttons.

The pole-mounted signs were designed to temporarily replace the standard roundels that mark the four street exits at London’s Oxford Circus Station.

The Triangle, Circle, Cross and Square were erected under the cover of darkness on Tuesday and will be on display for just 48 hours before being taken down and moved to Sony’s London headquarters for permanent display.
 
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Dstock7080

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Five stations involved:
As part of its worldwide debut, we teamed up with Sony to replace roundels at five London Underground stations.
Bringing in much-needed revenue, the advertising deal sees four new signs – a triangle, square, circle, and a cross – take the place of our iconic roundel.
While the promotion centres around Oxford Circus, Seven Sisters becomes Gran Turismo 7 Sisters , Mile End morphs into Miles End, Lancaster Gate is transformed into Ratchet and Clankcaster Gate, and West Ham has become Horizon Forbidden West Ham.
 

PTR 444

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Shame that these will only be on public display for 48 hours, but all in all a very good piece of work. If it wasn’t for uni work I might have made a trip to London just to see these. Wonder if anyone else will despite lockdown.
 

Ladder23

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Shame that these will only be on public display for 48 hours, but all in all a very good piece of work. If it wasn’t for uni work I might have made a trip to London just to see these. Wonder if anyone else will despite lockdown.
Photo of each of them illuminated on a Facebook page, London Underground/ overground enthusiasts. They’re smart!
 
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It is part of a slippery slope and I detest and despise it. The government now wants TfL to allow naming rights for underground stations to be sold; they care nothing about civic pride or the vulgarising of public space. It already grates to see 'Emirates Air Line' on the map.
 

Class465pacer

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It is part of a slippery slope and I detest and despise it. The government now wants TfL to allow naming rights for underground stations to be sold; they care nothing about civic pride or the vulgarising of public space. It already grates to see 'Emirates Air Line' on the map.
Better this than TfL go bankrupt
 

Doctor Fegg

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It is part of a slippery slope and I detest and despise it. The government now wants TfL to allow naming rights for underground stations to be sold; they care nothing about civic pride or the vulgarising of public space. It already grates to see 'Emirates Air Line' on the map.
Elizabeth Line grates more tbh...
 

rebmcr

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Better this than TfL go bankrupt
Yep. In comparison to other sponsorship possibilities this is quite elegant anyway, with a limited duration, respect for the regular design including New Johnston, and a nice earner for the official signage suppliers.
 

bluegoblin7

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It is part of a slippery slope and I detest and despise it. The government now wants TfL to allow naming rights for underground stations to be sold; they care nothing about civic pride or the vulgarising of public space. It already grates to see 'Emirates Air Line' on the map.
Where's your campaign to keep Gillespie Road named as such...?

This is nothing new. Arsenal was named such in 1932.
 

alex397

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Im not a big fan of the corporate advertising world, but it is actually great to see this. It’s an imaginative idea. I think it not only advertises the PS5, but also advertises the London Underground too - and TfL are getting paid for it.
 

Ladder23

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Im not a big fan of the corporate advertising world, but it is actually great to see this. It’s an imaginative idea. I think it not only advertises the PS5, but also advertises the London Underground too - and TfL are getting paid for it.
I agree, LU is a massive tourist attraction, it has interest worldwide. I speak to friends in the US who admire it and watch videos from active YouTubers, collect memorabilia such as maps and so on. I think this is a real positive!

maybe someone will come up with the idea next of making Sony roundel table lamps or lights. Similar to the one available on the museum store!
 

urbophile

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It only works because the other shapes can be seen as riffs on the original roundel. The standard design must remain in the forefront of popular imagination. Just as trains and buses covered in overall advertising only work because of the contrast with the standard livery.
 

timmydunn

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I think they're rather fun. Non-invasive and extremely temporary. Anyway, what's MORE interesting to me is that when I passed through last night the platform-level sponsorship occupies the whole wall panel - even the tiles are printed. That needs some decent planning, so well done. You can see a few wrinkles in the application. My pic:
 

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AlbertBeale

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John Griffiths said:
It is part of a slippery slope and I detest and despise it. The government now wants TfL to allow naming rights for underground stations to be sold; they care nothing about civic pride or the vulgarising of public space. It already grates to see 'Emirates Air Line' on the map.

Elizabeth Line grates more tbh...

All these annoy me too. The latest thing is at least only very short term - but, slippery slope and all that...



Don't get me started on the Jubilee Line - Fleet forever!

The day it launched, there was a load of people with "Fleet Line" stickers going round sticking them over the "Jubilee Line" name on the maps in the carriages*. And there were leaflets etc saying, "Fleet Line - Don't Jubilee've it!" The folks doing this had a friendly interview on BBC London, the local/regional radio station. And the metal embossed line-of-route lists/maps on stations on other lines, where there was an interchange marked for the Fleet, had stickers saying Jubilee put on top by LT. (The change was - relatively - last-minute, a decision pushed by royalist sycophants amongst Tory GLC members, and so some signage had already been manufactured on the basis of the Fleet name.) [* I'm sure I still have a few of those stickers somewhere.....]
 
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urbophile

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Why is it any different to the Victoria line or the multiplicity of Victoria stations around the country?
I'm not a royalist but I agree, one monarch is much the same as another. However, Crossrail is not just another Underground line, it's not even a combination of Underground and Overground, it's more akin to Thameslink except that it is run by TfL. To label it as if it was just another tube line seems to miss the point. Unless you're going to rename Thameslink the Philip Line.
 

60019

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Crossrail is not just another Underground line, it's not even a combination of Underground and Overground, it's more akin to Thameslink except that it is run by TfL. To label it as if it was just another tube line seems to miss the point. Unless you're going to rename Thameslink the Philip Line.
I think it had two purposes: staking a claim on it as being a core part of London’s transport and thus politically TfL’s rather than Whitehall’s or Berkshire’s, and saying that it is not a special thing from the passengers’ point of view but that it should be treated just like a tube line in London, even if the ends are a bit remote (IIRC it will be faster to get to Reading than the ends of some existing tube lines).

Before Thameslink 2000, there was a suggestion that it should be used entirely for inner suburban services. While that was quickly dropped because of the inevitable political objections (ie outer passengers not wanting to change at STP or Blackfriars), if it had happened and TfL had managed to get control, I can easily imagine that they would have given its main service groups line names, especially if they could get the frequency up a bit higher.
 

AlbertBeale

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I'm not a royalist but I agree, one monarch is much the same as another. However, Crossrail is not just another Underground line, it's not even a combination of Underground and Overground, it's more akin to Thameslink except that it is run by TfL. To label it as if it was just another tube line seems to miss the point. Unless you're going to rename Thameslink the Philip Line.

Exactly - Crossrail is conceptually similar to Thameslink - nothing wrong with calling them Crossrail and Thameslink, and not confusing them with essentially local-to-Greater-London services provided by the underground. Pretending it's a tube line is silly - the ownership isn't the point in terms of passengers understanding the system.
 

rebmcr

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Exactly - Crossrail is conceptually similar to Thameslink - nothing wrong with calling them Crossrail and Thameslink, and not confusing them with essentially local-to-Greater-London services provided by the underground. Pretending it's a tube line is silly - the ownership isn't the point in terms of passengers understanding the system.
The Metropolitan Line long ago bust that argument.
 

urbophile

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The Metropolitan Line long ago bust that argument.
Ironically so I suppose. Because the initial stretch of that line is of course not only the source of the whole London Underground network, but of Metro systems throughout the world. It's the 'main line' north of Baker Street which is so different from the rest of the 'tube'. Tidy-minded administrators might have disconnected it and lumped it in with Chiltern and its predecessors. It's probably got more in common with that than even London Overground.
 

AlbertBeale

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I'm not sure the Met Line did bust it. Clearly there are a few miles at the end of the line which are a bit un-Underground-y, but compared with trains coming in from Brighton or Reading (as on Thameslink and Crossrail), that's small beer.

Of course the bits of those two lines which run across the centre are useful to have on the Underground maps - but overall they really don't feel like or function like Underground lines and it seems (to me) to be silly to label them as such.
 
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