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British Rail Logo’s Green Makeover Has Original Designer Seeing Red: ‘Bollocks’
By Ell Ko, 23 Sep 2021
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Image via Rail Delivery Group
The British Rail logo has been around since its launch at an exhibition in January 1965, and its familiar red arrows have become synonymous with trains, stations, and rail travel as a whole.
Although it has remained largely unchanged for the last five decades, there are now talks of redesign from the country’s transport secretary, Grant Shapps.
Alongside the launch of the new Great British Railways next year, a new logo is needed, he states, promising a “familiar brand” but with a “bold new vision for passengers.” One that includes “punctual services, simpler tickets and a modern and green railway that meets the needs of the nation.”
To find out more about what the railway’s doing now and planning for the future, have a read of our new #WeMeanGreen pagehttps://t.co/AMdrtzFu8B pic.twitter.com/bqYzxIyPqk
— Rail Delivery Group (@RailDeliveryGrp) September 22, 2021
There’s also a separate campaign, launched by the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), which features the logo recolored in differing shades of green. This was meant to represent the environmental benefits of traveling via train as opposed to driving.
But to the original designer of the logo, it’s all “a load of old bollocks.”
Having designed the simple, yet effective, logo as a 24-year-old lettering artist, Gerry Barney is definitely not behind this rework of his timeless piece. Now 82, he has wholeheartedly rejected the RDG’s request to have him endorse the green logo.
When the proposal was read to him, his answer was a definite “no way.”
“I could understand it if they had just swapped red for green. But why on earth have they got that many colors?” was his reaction to The Guardian when the revamp was shown to him. “It’s a load of old bollocks. It’s just a mess.”
The original British Rail logo. Image via Gerry Barney for the British Rail
He points out that its recoloring is strange as the group has been using the original red logo in a television advertisement that has been airing since this April. “It’s nice that they are using again and using it properly, so why would they want to change it?”
When he designed it as a young artist all those years ago, the initial sketch was done on the back of an envelope during a commute on the tube to his office. “The only thought I had was railway lines coming and going,” he says. But that “only thought” proved to be the icon of a nation.
Despite the logo having survived the privatization of the rail network in 1996, the transport minister of the time was accused by the opposing Labour party of keeping the logo in order to conceal the shortcomings of the network as a result, reports The Guardian. And now, he’s worried about the same taking place again.
“I think the railways should be fully renationalized,” he declares. “Having disparate companies and regions is a load of nonsense.”
British Rail paid £50,000 for someone to spend 5 minutes max on MS Paint. pic.twitter.com/rQUcTxPMYe
— No Context Brits (@NoContextBrits) September 22, 2021
Instead of reworking the logo—which he feels “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”—Barney thinks his very first conception of it could be used as a less jarring update if the officials want a change. The first time he sketched it, he said, the entire train was covered with the logo “from roof to rails.”
“It looked bloody great,” he recalls. “But they wouldn’t do it. They were too apologetic about it.”
The logo isn’t just a logo anymore, all things considered. Barney feels that his opinion won’t be considered in the rebranding because the rail officials “probably don’t know [he’s] still alive.”
He also believes he knows why the logo has become such an integral part of rail travel and somewhat an important piece of the British identity. “Because each [tube] line has its own identity, you’re totally confused. The only reassuring thing is the logo to show you’re at the station.
[via The Guardian, image via the Rail Delivery Group and Gerry Barney for the British Rail]
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