Crossrail Roundel

[revupminster]

This was on London Connections; www.londonreconnections.com/2013/crossrail-gets-its-roundel/ I don't know if anyone can copy it over to here.

[grahamhewett]

So presumably the line colour is to be lilac?

[class411]

Mar 14, 2013 9:39:59 GMT revupminster said:

This was on London Connections; www.londonreconnections.com/2013/crossrail-gets-its-roundel/ I don't know if anyone can copy it over to here.

[Deleted]

Mar 14, 2013 10:51:04 GMT grahamhewett said:

So presumably the line colour is to be lilac?

And the doors, and the seats!!

Double thumbs up! :-)

[Dstock7080]

Mar 14, 2013 10:51:04 GMT grahamhewett said:

So presumably the line colour is to be lilac?

Dial-a-Ride would maybe need to change?
www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/corporate/media/logos/default.asp

[Ben]

Dial-a-ride looks a bit more red-ish? Seems halfway between Dial-a-ride and the taxi one... and not very distinguishable from either at a quick glance.

Having said that, many of TfL's mode colours double up to line colours, etc. Like cycle-hire being W&C turquoise before the bean counting people dropped their own stamp on it.

I suppose this confirms the ultimate death of the 'TfL rail' brand, whose house colour was Bakerloo brown?

Soon we shall be at a crossroads wrt colours. At the moment, each new chunk of transport added has been usefully argueably a different mode aswell, such as the Underground vs DLR vs Tramlink vs Overground vs XR, but if, say, the WLLR goes ahead using DLR tech standards, it'll need a different line colour, but not a different mode colour. Likewise XR2, or if TfL gets any conventional radial rail routes. Will they be purple, orange, or brown? Who knows...

[brigham]

I thought Crossrail already had a symbol; that bendy 'X' thing. Is this a 'brand revision' before it even turns a wheel in anger, or am I just confused, as usual?

I'm not sure why it needs a distinct identity anyway. It mostly runs parallel to the CLR in the central area; why not just print it in red, just below, as a Deep Level Central, and be done with it?

[rapidtransitman]

I personally really dislike the prior Crossrail bendy X thing icon. The Crossrail roundel, for all it's colour issues (difficulty for the colour-blind to see either of the colours), is crisp & clear, and instantly identifies it as a London transportation service, with all the connotations that the TfL roundel implies.

[grahamhewett]

@ben -WRT available colours somewhere on another thread (forget which) I noted that when we transferred the W&C, we were allowed to choose the line colour from a card showing the possible colour options. No one seems to know whether such a palette is still maintained. At the time, I recall that we were shown about a dozen colours including a dark cherry red, a chocolate brown and a darker turquoise, also perhaps a dark green. It's probable, looking back that lilac was also available then (but we didn't choose it!). Although it is now thought that some colours are quite difficult to produce in vitreous enamel, I imagine the disability standards are also a major limitation. That said, the Paris metro seems to use some very French colours - a "maron" and a "vert fonce" which is a quite yellowy turquoise.

GH

[Ben]

Thanks for that Graham, enamel seems to always present problems for colour reproduction. Wasn't it one of the reasons the Vic ended up with light blue instead of... lilac(?)?

One would hope there is a palette maintained still, but a lot of tweaks have happened over the last decade or so (DLR from racing green to turquoise, the W&C having less or more blue in its composition, the ELL orange vs Overground Orange), so presumably the whole lot would have been redone aswell. Theres likely to be a finite number of distinguishable colours in the end, however. Wonder what that number is...

[phillw48]

Do they still use enamel signs? Surely today we have materials that are cheaper, less likely to corrode and most importantly perhaps does not have such a limited range of colours.

[grahamhewett]

Ben - you are right about the tweaks - my recollection of the '50s equivalents was that the Central was a much darker red (the Central was Tube red, rather than the bus red we have now), and the District and Piccadilly were darker. The coming of the Victoria seems to have started the shift but changes in eg printing techniques may have influenced things as well. I think we are getting very close to what will be sustainable, given the tendency of colours to change when exposed to light; there's also the problem that some shades lack separate names - the various shades from maroon (Midland) via Byzantine imperial purple (quite a reddish shade) to violet (quite blueish), are quite difficult to describe, lack separate terms, and for many folk probably therefore quite difficult to distinguish.

BTW we chose turquoise (eau de nil really) for the W&C because the BR lawyer dealing with the transfer, Helen Bissell (now a partner in Hollingworth Bissell) had an evening dress (which I recall well) that colour. So there you have it - the W&C colour is Helen's dress shade.

[grahamhewett]

phillw48 - sorry, your post crossed with mine - I would guess that vinyls have opened up a wider range of "true" colours that stay "true" to judge from their use on rolling stock, although the problems of distinguishing some subtle shades remains.

GH

[domh245]

I wonder if it has been set in stone yet, but on the tube map, will it be in the "hollowed" line style (such as on the DLR and overground) to distinguish it from the trains with an UndergrounD roundel painted on the sides, as seems to be the case at the moment?

[Chris M]

Mar 14, 2013 14:01:36 GMT brigham said:

I thought Crossrail already had a symbol; that bendy 'X' thing. Is this a 'brand revision' before it even turns a wheel in anger, or am I just confused, as usual?

The current Crossrail brand is for a railway construction organisation. The railway operation organisation will largely be different people with different brand goals, so even if it weren't to be part of the "TfL family" then I wouldn't have been surprised by a rebranding.

[Deleted]

It looks far too similar to the Taxi-Private Hire logo and is quite crude on the eye. I'm all in favour of the use of the roundel but they could have chosen better colours in my opinion.

[crusty54]

There have been many attempts over the years to abandon vitreous enamel.

It still provides the best value for money and meets fire safety standards.

[Chris M]

Presumably a lot of that value comes from its longevity? It can't be the cheapest material to produce. but there are plenty of examples of decades old signs still going strong so it will be much cheaper in the long term than something that requires renewal every 5-10 years

[Antje]

Coaches are very similar to Overground. I cannot see the fuss about the tone of colour.

What are the expected Pantone, HSL and Hex values? Thanks.

[Deleted]

It must of taken at least 10 seconds to come up with this!

[Ben]

Chris M:

As can be seen though at various places (Hillingdon being a prime example) some enamel signs are of poor quality, so must presumably have been produced cheaply using inferior products. However, one only has to look at the recent WASTE of taxpayers money where signage replacement was incentivised, resulting in the wholescale scrapping of many expensive and perfectly serviceable (and even new!) signs. [Although, statistically, I suppose there must also have been some cheap enamel signs replaced by this, though in my neck of the woods (NW) I can't think of any...)

[Deleted]

Mar 22, 2013 1:03:41 GMT Ben said:

Chris M:

As can be seen though at various places (Hillingdon being a prime example) some enamel signs are of poor quality, so must presumably have been produced cheaply using inferior products. However, one only has to look at the recent WASTE of taxpayers money where signage replacement was incentivised, resulting in the wholescale scrapping of many expensive and perfectly serviceable (and even new!) signs. [Although, statistically, I suppose there must also have been some cheap enamel signs replaced by this, though in my neck of the woods (NW) I can't think of any...)

Wern't the signs at Hillingdon and West Harrow a cheaper batch manufactured in Germany? I remember reading that on here somewhere. The colours were not fade resistant so look at them now!

[Ben]

Its odd how the red of the roundle has faded but not the red of the 'no smoking' signs above them. I'm pretty sure they aren't later vynal stickers either, so its a mystery...

[crusty54]

Mar 24, 2013 22:03:22 GMT @bronzeonion said:

Mar 22, 2013 1:03:41 GMT Ben said:

Chris M:

As can be seen though at various places (Hillingdon being a prime example) some enamel signs are of poor quality, so must presumably have been produced cheaply using inferior products. However, one only has to look at the recent WASTE of taxpayers money where signage replacement was incentivised, resulting in the wholescale scrapping of many expensive and perfectly serviceable (and even new!) signs. [Although, statistically, I suppose there must also have been some cheap enamel signs replaced by this, though in my neck of the woods (NW) I can't think of any...)

Wern't the signs at Hillingdon and West Harrow a cheaper batch manufactured in Germany? I remember reading that on here somewhere. The colours were not fade resistant so look at them now!

No they were British made and the problem was caused by under firing to produce a slight variation in the red. This was at a time when attempts were being made to work to a natural colour reference system. A clear coat is applied nowadays to maintain the correct colour.

The signs produced in Germany were actually far superior to those produced in the UK, France and Spain in the early 90s.

The Boos & Hahn factory in Germany closed soon afterwards but their signs are still evident on many stations.

[crusty54]

Apr 11, 2013 16:46:34 GMT Ben said:

Its odd how the red of the roundle has faded but not the red of the 'no smoking' signs above them. I'm pretty sure they aren't later vynal stickers either, so its a mystery...

The red on the no smoking signs was safety red which fired correctly.