British Rail: History of a Design

if you have any kind of knowledge on british trains you can probably recognize this logo if not this is the iconic logo of british rail used from 1965 up until privatization in 1997. despite its significance to british train travel it's also rather iconic to railroads in general and recognizable on a global scale so how did british railways go from this logo in 1948 to this one in 1965. here's how that happened upon the inception of british railways or br for short on january 1st 1948 the company had no true identity of its own locomotive tender simply had british railways printed on the sides using whichever font the locomotives former operator used it wouldn't be until several months later that br would unify its four major railway companies under one logo initially a modernized art deco logo was proposed by the british transport commission railway executive known as a totem it was inspired by the london underground and used the font gill sands as adopted by the london and northeastern railway in 1929 it was apparently applied to a single locomotive tender but the reception was less than positive while the totem would be used as a br's corporate logo being used on station signs advertisements and timetables the totem was scrapped for use on locomotives in favor of the lion on wheel or cycling lion logo initially created by cecil thomas for the british transport commission it would be adapted for use on br locomotives by abram games a lion stands atop a british railway's word mark with a railway wheel behind it it was also designed with reversibility in mind so that the line would always be facing forward in the steam locomotive's direction of travel interestingly though the logo didn't use br's adopted corporate typeface of gil sands and instead used something unique additionally the line would typically only appear on locomotives the logo would appear as such until 1956. that year the british transport commission was granted a heraldic achievement by the college of arms and the lord lion then btc chairman brian robertson wanted a grandeur logo for british railways designed with consultation from charles franklin the new logo was modified from the original now depicting the line with more detail and now holding the wheel while also adding in a crown once again a unique serif font was used all of this wrapped up in a circle another variation existed as well the emblem was soon given the nickname of ferret and dartboard ironically this version of the logo looks older than the original 1948 design with its choice of serif fine overall increased detail the art deco totem remained in use as the corporate identification for br away from locomotives as the 1950s progressed on so did the modernization plan and thousands of miles of railway lines were cut by the chairman of the british railways board dr richard beeching by the early 1960s the look for british railways was proving sour and outdated by this point as well passenger travel was in sharp decline as the national road network was greatly improved to start plus with a gallery of different colored equipment a logo and emblem that looked even more outdated than the initial design and plenty of aging steam locomotives vr needed a fresh look and corporate appearance to truly appear more modern prior to this though the railroad design world was indeed changing one of the first railroads to engage in a large-scale rebranding effort was the american new haven railroad beginning in 1954 with a radically new and different logo and paint scheme a more famous example was canadian national railways in 1960 canadian graphic designer alan fleming was the head of cn's rebranding project and managed to set a new standard in railroad iconography and livery design fleming designed cn's new logo with the objective of looking timeless compared to the old maple leaf logo which look antiquated given its symbols and font a sleek new paint scheme was introduced for cn's equipment too and overall the project was a great success and received very well thus in 1964 british railways looked to canada for inspiration vr's design panel set up a working party led by milner gray of the design research unit the goal was to breathe new life into br which was looking rather dated and aimless to start the british rail corporate identity manual was developed which introduced and laid out the standard appearance for br's equipment and infrastructure going forward first british railways would now be known as british rail a new standardized color scheme of rail blue yellow and grey would become the norm on rail equipment while red and white were typically used elsewhere braille alphabet designed by jock kinnear and margaret culver was set as the new typeface for the company and of course british rail would also receive a brand new modernized logo designed by jerry barney of the design research unit the two-way track symbol later the double arrow was conceived at the time barney was a 20 year old lettering artist working at the design research unit designers of the dru were given a brief of the british rail project but milner gray wasn't satisfied and opened up the project to the rest of the studio then one day while barney was riding the london underground on his way to work he drew up the famous double arrow on the back side of an envelope and then straightened it out when he got to his office around 50 other concepts were drawn up and taped to a wall but this was narrowed down to six and eventually two one drawn up by callus clemens along with jerry barney's arrows were proving to be a new design trend in the mid 60s clemen's design was leaked to the press and then abandoned promptly leaving only the double arrows remaining with clements assisting in the final design the design was chosen and was to be applied on everything british rail whether that be locomotives rolling stock uniforms road vehicles advertising signage carpet dining everything was to have the double arrow on vr the logo emits words and instead opts for an icon showcasing two railway lines with interlocked arrows showing the direction of travel each arrow line gets wider from where they meet their respective horizontal line barney says in the br symbol the lines aren't all the same thickness for the angle bars meet the horizontal ones they will appear thicker at the join so they actually widen slightly going out but that comes from lettering where you have to pay attention to the counters the spaces that are left not the thing you're drawing they work together letters and fonts or logos don't always have the same thickness and this is apparent in his design regardless the double arrow logo was just what british rail needed for a modern and fresh appearance a silhouette of the logo was easily recognizable it didn't require knowledge of the english language to understand what it was conveying and it was of course unique br's new typeface and color scheme of blue yellow and gray would be quite the shake up too jerry barney said it was a big change people were using helvetica moving away from traditional faces cn seemed to sum it all up it was clean but if you weren't careful boring it took the life and soul out of things in retrospect there was too much but at the time everyone wanted to use it it was exciting initially barney had the idea of the logo being applied to the entire site of a locomotive but br wasn't impressed the railway unveiled its new look in summer 1964 with a demonstration train known as xp 64. a class 47 with several modified mark 1 coaches were in the consist and would lead to the development of the mark ii coaches later in january 1965 br had an exhibition at the design council and the new look would officially begin to be rolled out onto the system new and old diesels and electrics are painted into the new scheme and given the new logo the remaining steam locomotives retain their original br logos and paint albeit usually looking quite rustic and faded however the br owned veil of ridle railway a narrow gauge line had their locomotives received the new look treatment 2 in the late 1960s around this time in the netherlands dutch railways looked to see an nbr's example with their own rebranding in 1968 a similar aerodriven logo was drawn up for the railway following br's example other european countries would follow suit with their own redesigns in 1970 british rail's new brand of c-link fairies would receive br paint and a blue variant of the double arrow logo overseas in the united states on may 1st 1971 the newly formed amtrak faced a similar dilemma to british railways in 1948 amtrak inherited a hodgepodge of rustic equipment dating back to the 1930s 40s and 50s and had no defining identity of its own however amtrak already had their own logo created in time for their creation but their first paint scheme wasn't adopted until 1972. amtrak's logo was known as the arrow and was used up until the year 2000 back in the uk throughout the 1970s and 80s br's logo and appearance would be adapted for various new locomotives and brands of service such as the inner city among other trains the logo had become an iconic british symbol of all things related to trains it was far more modern than its predecessors and gave br a positive appearance boost it desperately needed from the sides of trains timetables advertising material uniforms and station signs the iconic double arrows were everywhere on the railways but in the early 1990s british rail began to be privatized after the process was completed in 1997 numerous franchises sprung up with their own individual logos however the double era wasn't forgotten about after its trademark was transferred to the secretary of state for transport the logo still appears on train tickets and is used to denote stations on the national rail network most recently on may 20th 2021 as well great british railways was announced to take control and streamline operations of trains with that said and a proposed launch date of 2023 gbr is said to use a slightly altered version of the double arrow logo with scotland and whales having their own variants real alphabet 2 which was introduced in 2020 by network rail will be used as gbr standard typeface so there's the history of british rail's iconic logos from a line and wheel to a simple yet iconic icon vr had undertaken a rather ambitious and innovative rebranding effort inspiring other european countries in the process it's probably safe to say that if you ask someone to think of a british railway logo they'll likely think of the double arrow it played a major role in truly modernizing the appearance of british rail and became synonymous with british trains even to an american like myself if i think of british trains especially logos i usually always picture the double arrow logo with that said the british rail double arrow has become an icon of graphic design and has managed to stand the test of time still seeing the light of dan heritage equipment but also continues to guide people by way of british railways [Music] [Applause] you

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Keywords: Amtrakguy365, BR, British Railways, British Rail, British Railways Documentary, BR Trains, BR Steam, British, UK, British Rail Logo, History, Commentary, Education, British Railways 1960s, British Train, Train, Trains, Railroad, Railway, British Trains, British Transport Films, British Rail Documentary, British Rail History, BR Beeching, BR Modernisation, United Kingdom, Great Britain, LMS, LNER, SR, GWR, Logo, Design, High Speed, HST 125, BR HST 125, British high speed, British trains

Id: Ha3jd7Fq2LY

Length: 11min 10sec (670 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 26 2021