Surely all that matters about the new trains is how they function, how user friendly the interiors are and above all how well the system is designed and run, right? And how efficiently. Isn’t that why we spend hours drawing little maps, trying to work out running patterns and arguing over the various merits of various systems. The trains themselves are just a means to an end. All effort should go into important things for the user like improving frequency and reliability, surely?
No.
Well not only. All of those things are vital and no amount of effort should be distracted from these important tasks but to fail to see the importance of the shape and finish of the trains themselves as the embodiment of these efforts is to make a fundamental mistake about how the world works.
The trains will be the highly public front window of the new PT network and need to both deliver it and look like they are delivering it. They offer the opportunity of hugely valuable moving billboards for the whole idea of PT in AK and the rail system in particular. There are two ways in particular that this can be achieved:
1. The shape of the trains should, as much as is practical, express the ideals of the new system, of speed and modernity, and above all of a new beginning for Auckland, so it is indeed a disappointment that this new iteration is much boxier than the earlier renderings.
2. The frankly odd and discordant colour scheme is frumpy [makes me think of a strangely stitched together school uniform the result of a merger of two earlier ones] but also it fails to offer a useful ground for communicating core messages about the system in effective and dynamic ways: The trains’ sides are a fantastic place for PT to market itself artfully. Huge dynamic billboards.
Here is an image from Copenhagen that is a good example of the second idea:
Copenhagen
Note I don’t in any way advocate selling the advertising here. Well except for itself. Super graphics like the above example are both eye catching and dramatic. And extremely useful branding and selling tools. Imagine sitting stuck in traffic in your car and seeing a train speeding by just for long enough to read the giant WiFi symbol and the lightening flashes symbolising its clean electric propulsion. Like in the above example where the graphics are both showing that this is the door that cyclists need to use but also that the trains accommodate cycling and, even more importantly, have something of the virtue of the bicycle about them.
If the trains are silver, blue, and yellow [why?] any such opportunity will be lost. Oh sure they can alway be repainted, but will they be? And at what cost? Please let’s start strong and clever with this new opportunity. Blue is good, it’s Auckland’s colour isn’t it? It’s cool, can be sophisticated, electric, but I don’t mind so as it isn’t a hodge-potch, like it seems to be now.
One more thing, they really should be branded with an AT symbol, what a great pair of letters, and a useful little word too. What luck: Where it’s AT. But they must be used in a visually strong, typographically simple one colour logo that has a chance to survive being used on all transit modes and locations and still stand out: Buses, Ferries, Trains, Stations, Wharves, it’s got to be tough.
There is a fantastic tradition of bold sans serif faces and simple letters in transport systems worldwide from Paris to New York to Stockholm to LA. Why would you try to depart from this tradition? It would be great to have a visual identity that is instantly comprehensible to all international visitors and says: TRANSIT. The worst thing we could do is get all fiddly with fancy shapes and lots of colours. Something that looks like a second rate courier company’s logo.
Some good examples:
The A-Train in New York- just add a T. Sorted. Oh here’s one:
Stockholm Metro
Paris Metro
Paris Metro- simple enough to be used as a cutout
LA Metro
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Spot on, as usual; the current proposed livery for the Auckland trains is underwhelming, actually somewhat embarrassingly amateur. But then, and I hate to say this, so is pretty much everything about AT’s design profile. It’s funny about the red S-tog (trains) in Copenhagen; a couple of years back they were beginning to look a little frumpy, particularly when compared with the newer Øresund trains (initially all white then pale blue so they didn’t get confused with Metro rolling stock, I guess). But those giant graphics have really changed their look for the better. A clear demonstration of what good design can do to change public perception.
Patrick, I 100% support all the points you’ve made here. Its absolutely crucial to get the external colouring of the EMUs right and to make them look stylish, as they will be the flagship of the PT network going forward. Furthermore, well thought-through branding of the PT network is an equal priority. A group needs to be formed ASAP (suggest you instigate its formation) to present designs to AT as soon as possible. Start the ball rolling Patrick – there isnt much time left to prevent a visual train wreck.
I’m sure someone could come up with a really snazzy colour design for these new trains. We have so many motifs that could be exploited like the koru, the fern, the Auckland volcanic cones, Rangitoto Island, the list goes on. This could quite easily have been opened up to uni students around Auckland as a design competition – which would also be a great way to raise peoples’ awareness of these new trains. The current design is very boring but they’ll need to be re-painted 10 or 15 years down the track anyway. At least we have the trains! Can’t wait to ride one!
Great post PR
The trains speeding past clogged traffic is indeed the visual metaphor we need.
“Where it’s AT” is also rather f#%king good. They should pay you for that.
But-
Blue? The “Blues” are blowing donkeys.
Scarlet/Maroon like the trams. Or yellow like the old ARA buses? Just not blue.
And yes- simple type face and logo not the fancy schmancy bullshit that predominates.
I vote Patrick as Train Stylist
Amen Patrick.
On the trains v traffic, this is kinda the effect I think we want I see:
http://zombieresearchsociety.com/archives/5388
See above, the image from Tim’s link…. heh
I wouldn’t mind a bright electric blue, and quite like the pink actually. Keeping them silver makes them look like diesel/freight trains.
The bus lanes have that teal colour. So stay away from that.
On reflection, the blue might end up looking the drab Wellington trains. Pink is probably too much of a culture shock for Auckland. Purple?
A deep plum/purple would rock. Goes well with white, black or grey accents too.
Those pink Copenhagen trains are ugly. Either that brushed/metallic silver look in the mock-up or white is fine by me. Anything that looks proffessional, classy, formal, and structured/consistent. I’m not sure about showing too much chassis in the renders.
Like the saying goes, there’s no accounting for taste. I can’t fathom how you think white or silver i.e, the hideously bland colour scheme they’ve come up with for these trains, is better looking than something more bright, bold and outgoing. I really like the look of those Danish trains, looks so much more modern.
OK i retract my statement on the earlier post – you have managed to convince me of the importance of the exterior paint job 🙂
What ever they decide, they need to ensure that graffiti is easy to remove,
If you look at the overpass in the photo you can see one that has received some extra input on the paint job…….. it significantly degrades the look
yes yes yes! Plum is perfect.
The Copenhagen trains are actually solid red, the pinkyness is an artifact of the photo.
Blue and yellow on stainless is the same colour scheme as Melbourne, can we not have our own?
I vote black over stainless, with red and white detailing.
Practically all the trains in Australasia follow this boring pattern of being silver or white and being underwhelming. All trains in Sydney are grey with yellow doors (the new Warratahs dont look too bad I must admit). The colour scheme of the mantangis is equally as boring, and not too different from the Auckland ones. People on this blog have said they’re almost identical to Melbourne, in a way yes, but the new Melbourne trains are still more bold than the Auckland ones. The Melbourne ones have blue doors which is far nicer & the Metro livery really stands out compared to the AT one. I really just hope this Mock up is only that, and not a true refelection of the paint job these trains will finish with.
When I first saw the title of this “Who cares what the trains look like?” I thought, ‘uh-oh, here’s a bloke saying it doesn’t matter what they look like as long as they function’ but was very pleased that Patrick and others share the idea that the trains should be a flagship. They should represent Auckland and make us feel proud. It may even only be a decent paint job that is needed. I don’t see yellow on the buses anymore, surely far more prominent around pedestrians than trains. Please get Patrick or a design consultant or some ladies with an eye for colour schemes involved in tarting these things up a bit. They look like they’ve been left to the engineering boys to make the decisions. Practical people, but not known for their sense of style!
Keep it simple. Solid navy, white graphics, sans serif typeface: Auckland colours. And no graphic identities confected by commercial Australian architectural practices!
all blue sound reasonable. Otherwise black with white/grey logo like the new Air Nz 777 plane?
While we’re on the topic of logos, it was interesting to see this thing on the front cover of the final Regional Land Transport Programme in AT’s board papers:
From page 5 of here: http://www.aucklandtransport.govt.nz/about-us/board-members/Board-Meetings-Minutes/Documents/Board%20reports%20June%202012/AT-Agenda-Item-10(ii)-RLTP-June2012.pdf
At first glance it could be AV
But look at what the dark green bits spell…
Too funny
Oh dear, exactly as feared; both overdone and half-baked. Pretty much what not to do; how to ruin the great strength of the two letters with clutter. Looks like the logo of some small town trucking company: Atiamuri Trucking: “stock our speciality.” Or the three primary colours of light thrown in there support Geoff’s thought that it is something to do with AV; a TV aerial company perhaps. Now imagine that on a blue, yellow and silver train…..? That only leaves brown, pink, and purple to fit in somewhere.
Simplicity is everything in this case, AT isn’t the first public transit organisation in the world to go through this process, so much to build on there.
Given how much AT has had to do in such a short time and with such stretched resources my hope is that this is just a holding image until proper analysis and process can be done.
Patrick, this is AT’s intended final colouring. Our trains are to look like those in Australia and Malaysia…frumpy and unimaginative, only moving us from the 19th to the 20th century and showing yet again how out of step NZ is. No wonder the rest of the world continues to laugh at us behind our back. You need to lead a group of product designers, graphic artists and marketing specialists, to stop this mish-mash colouring and complete lack of logo design / integration from happening. Just highlighting inadequacies on this blog and hoping something will change as a result, will (definitely) not work in this instance.
I’m pretty sure that stainless steel (or other easy to clean material) was listed as a requirement for the trains.
If that ‘CAD’ thing is supposed to be the new corporate logo for AT then we’ve got a problem. But it explains the pale blue of the EMU livery and with its heavy handed vulgarity reinforces my original contention that AT’s design profile is significantly wanting. An aesthetic disaster but hardly unexpected.
All very nice to wish for changes but unless someone does something it will be grey/blue/yellow.
As I said before people, form a group ‘now’ to present designs to AT for external colouring and logo usage. Patrick, you need to lead this. What say you?
Oh dear, oh dear. You are all falling into the subjectivity-trap – that is, assuming that what you find aesthetically pleasing must therefore be similarly pleasing to everyone. Well it is this naivety that fuels a voracious advertising and branding industry that suckers in those prepared to pay big money for the ultimate dream-livery or catchy logo, when the reality is that the public soon gets used to whatever colour or design is chosen and unless it is really gross, simply ceases to notice it.
I grew up with (and grew to love) the old blue and white livery of British Rail. Everything standard, everything the same, so you knew just where you were and what to expect. Now when I visit Britain I observe an endless array of colours and designs, some of them totally puce, most failing to complement each other when viewed side-by-side, and yet each no doubt professionally designed and styled apparently to reflect someone’s view of what all should find pleasing or what should capture the essence of something or other.
I remember when the BR class 317 EMU’s appeared with their end-connecting gangways and small windscreens, they drew enormous flak from various railfan publications for their alleged ugliness, but to me they looked pleasantly functional unlike some of the stylised tackiness that has come since. That was back in the 1980’s. Now they are simply accepted for what they are.
More recently National Express took over the GNER franchise in Britain and immediately set about rebranding and repainting at a totally unnecessary cost. Then Modern Railways published an interview with their new marketing manager who expounded on the importance of brand loyalty and brand recognition, assuming that marketing and branding of rail services was no different to marketing and branding of products on supermarket shelves. Complete twaddle of course.
When I first came to Wellington the trains were red. However the red was old and tired, and so the greeny-yellow that replaced it seemed like an improvement. Then after some years they changed to plain light-blue and my first reaction was ‘yuk’, but true to form, this livery grew on me (and all of us) and as it spread over the fleet we all got used to it. The latest livery adorning the Matangis and refurbished Ganz Mavag sets I also find quite pleasing, though I see it described as ‘drab’ by a commenter above. Indeed even among the commenters above there are tell-tale signs of disagreement as to what’s hot and what’s not.
So to all of you who think style and branding is so important, I urge you to stand back a little and accept that:- a)there is no one taste that appeals to all, b)within reason, whatever is chosen the city will soon get used to, and c) the livery and logo chosen now will almost certainly change many times during the lives of the units, filling the coffers of the brand-designers and snake-oil salesmen, and suckering in those who fail to recognise the subjectivity trap. Look around the world and you will see hundreds of urban rail systems with hundreds of styles and hundreds of different liveries. As a visitor you will hop on board those services and be much more concerned about how easy they are to use and whether they will get you to where you want to go, than about the style or colour. And if you remain in one place for any length of time you will get used to it and accept it.
So, in the total scheme of things, what the new trains in Auckland look like is NOT THAT IMPORTANT.
“pleasantly functional” – spoken like an engineer. The livery and logo can help promote public transport to all Aucklanders. There’s a function for you.
Boom!
I agree with your sentiment ultimately there is nothing ‘new’ under the sun. For all the calls of “livery and logo can help promote public transport to all Aucklanders”, five years down the track it will be stale, rinse and repeat.
Better to spend money on station amenities etc.
@ Dave
‘I grew up with (and grew to love) the old blue and white livery of British Rail’. Actually Dave, you’re just citing one of the best examples of a well-designed corporate logo and livery. The British Rail design profile (including its name) was developed by the pioneering British industrial design consultancy Design Research Unit from the mid 1950s until its launch in 1963. It was the largest and most complex corporate identity programme undertaken in the UK at the time: ‘In addition to addressing the signage and general appearance of approximately 2,000 stations, the company estimated that 4,000 locomotives, 23,000 passenger carriages and 45 Sealink ships were repainted in the course of implementation.’ (Michelle Cotton, Design Research Unit 1942-72 (London: Koenig Books, 2011), p. 63). Good design of logos and livery is absolutely critical to the success of any public transport system. Stuff up the design profile and you get exactly what you describe has happened in the UK over the past twenty or so years, that is since its public transport sector (trains and buses) was privatised. And let me assure you, I’m not being subjective. Aside from anything else I hold a PhD in design history and have had a long involvement in design-related matters both as a curator (not here, of course) and as an historian of design. Oddly enough I also have a personal link to the ‘old’ BR design: the founding partner of DRU, the person who coined the name British Rail, Milner Gray, was married to my first cousin; nice guy.
JR Group – the largest railway company in the world, got it right when they first formed back in 1987. They created a simple yet striking logo and over the ensuing years, set about making the trains comprising their suburban services, simple silver-coloured units with a thin strip of colour denoting the line and the JR logo placed towards the front, middle and rear of the trains.
Auckland has the opportunity to not have to go through iteration after iteration of train exterior colouring and PT operator logo design as the city is in the fortunate position of building a completely brand new rail network all at once over the next 5 years.
I agree that too many so-called marketing consultancy, brand consultancy and advertising agencies, come up with unecessarily expensive yet meaningless logos. New Zealand is strewn with unbeliveably bad logo design, particularly in the public sector, logos that were likely bought at great expense yet conceived and designed by relative amatuers.
Amongst those who read this blog are designers, marketing specialists, transport planners and railway enthusiasts who collectively could come up with the right colouring and logo design so that we can do this exercise once and do it right. For your info, I specialise in commuter marketing solutions and have been spending most of my time working in Japan and North Asia since 2007.
I do not agree that the EMU colouring and PT network logo design are unimportant – they are very important and need to be done once and done right as in the case of JR, the logo they implemented in 1987 is still in use today. JR went through many colour iterations for their trains since 1987 but as I have already stated, Auckland doesn’t have to go through any colour iterations from here as so many transport operators worldwide have done the work before us. We just have to look around the world, pick out the good ideas / practical implementations, distill them and come up with something simple yet creative for Auckland, that will not date in the years to come. Good design is all about simplicity married with functionality.
Patrick Reynolds, I suggest, should be designated as the point-man to coordinate the activities of an ATB EMU colouring and PT logo design group. I am certainly happy to contribute my thoughts and Asia marketing / transport network experience to such a group and look forward to working in with the collective talent of the contributors to this blog, as together we can I believe, come up with something that is stylish, practical, has a long shelf life and which doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. Patrick, over to you.
Making the new trains look fantastic is a key part of the “public transport has vastly improved from how you remember it” message that Auckland is investing huge money in making happen. That’s why it’s important, because it’s about highlighting PT as the best way to travel.
@ Christopher T + Odaikorob – yes, I agree, it is possible to ‘get it wrong’ with a style and livery, but what I read in the comments above is mostly petty nit-picking over schemes that have not ‘got it wrong’, and which simply reflect each commenter’s preference:-
– “Keeping them silver makes them look like diesel/freight trains”.
– “the blue might end up looking the drab Wellington trains”
– “Those pink Copenhagen trains are ugly”
– “The current design is very boring”
– “Practically all the trains in Australasia follow this boring pattern of being silver or white and being underwhelming”
– “The colour scheme of the mantangis is equally as boring”
– “An aesthetic disaster but hardly unexpected”
– “But it explains the pale blue of the EMU livery and with its heavy handed vulgarity..”
Take this comment: “I don’t see yellow on the buses anymore, surely far more prominent around pedestrians than trains.”, presumably a suggestion that mandatory bright yellow on the front of trains is somehow no good. Really? On a recent visit to Stuttgart and Karlsruhe I saw two large municipal fleets of all-yellow trams. They looked fine, though not my favourite colour.
Christopher T – Had the British Rail colour scheme been green and yellow, or red and white, I am sure I could have grown to love that too!
Odaikorob – It is a nice idea that we should get a livery and logo that will endure, but the reality is likely to be that at periodic intervals a changed administration or even a changed marketing manager will decide that it is time for a complete re-branding, so out with the old and in with the new, regardless of how “good” the old was. Such is the absurd “importance” attached to branding.
Recently there was a move by the branding gurus to change the colour of the famed Swiss post-buses away from their traditional yellow with a thin red stripe. The public outcry led to a complete backdown. But was the simple yellow + red-stripe so obviously “correct”? Of course not! It was just what everyone had got used to.
Here are my wishes:
1) That the railways in Britain would once again become “British Rail” and return to the old bi-direction logo (which is still widely recogised as a symbol for rail).
2) That the railways of New Zealand would revert to an unambiguous “New Zealand Rail”, and restore the simple red, white and black NZR logo.
I can already hear the howls of protest from the branding aficionados, but these brandings were simple, plain, and once people got used to them, they worked.
Dave it’s important to distinguish between kit and service. The issue here isn’t about Kiwi Rail, or any other rail company, it isn’t really about trains per se at all, but about an urban transit service and how it communicates with its users [and especially its potential new users]. And yes the post title refers to the new trains specifically because that is a current issue but it is really about the visual communication direction across all of AT’s services; trains, buses, ferries, stations, wharves, and so on. AT are going to own these trains, and maybe even one day have a rail corridor they don’t share with a logistics company, but that is only part of their work, and a small part by ridership at the moment. So the real models for what is needed is much more TfL than British Rail, to take a UK example. You are right to point out that design should not be left to public whim, especially because as in your example above the public is notoriously resistant to change. This is why I am so anxious to get it right from the start, like they did with the new colour-coded Link buses.
And, yes, the point of the post is to argue that there is more at stake in these decisions than what people’s favourite colours are.
Public transport in Auckland is more than rail, and that’s more important to signify than branding rail the same in the rest of the country like the old days.
I take the point about things changing over time anyway. However there’s no excuse for starting with a boring half-arsed paint job that looks like a group of colour-blind engineers came up with it, when it’s really not that hard to do so much better. Even an all black train would be smarter and more meaningful than the dull dreck being proposed so far.
Dave. My comment about yellow no longer being applied to the buses is in relation to the argument that yellow is needed on the trains for safety issues but apparently not on buses anymore, despite their greater exposure to pedestrians.
Anyway, what I like about this site is that everyone is allowed to contribute to the discussion, hopfully backing up with facts and there’s great respect for each other’s opinions.
I can’t quite recall the different UK train operators colour schemes. I did enjoy rail travel over there. There are generally more interior provisions on the overland trains then we have, as many will know, such as full length seats and on longer-distance, some tables.
The only things I recall about the shinkansen in Japan was that they were a sort of white colour; I did not notice any logo and that they were very impressive looking from the outside.
Other than that the interior was very functional; nothing fancy at all. Except for the fact that they departed and arrived absolutely on time!
Yes, I agree that the colour scheme on Aucklands DMU fleet is overly fussy-not easy on the eye.
A more flowing colour scheme with only two colours would be nice.
It would be nice also if Fullers tidied up their horrid colour scheme.
Their colour scheme makes their vessels look even shorter, what they need to do is have a colour scheme running the full length of each vessel.
However I do like their scheme on the Tiri Cat which was formerly known as the Quickcat Two.
This silver, blue & yellow livery is common in a lot of train services around the world. (just img search “train livery”)
I really hoped for a brand new design that would symbolise the ‘futuristic’ electrified network and a new Auckland Transport way of business. Electric vehicles already carry with them a wonderful image of the future and could easily capture people’s imaginations if they had livery to match. Britomart is also a quite futuristic-looking place and it would look fantastic with sleek “Tron-style” trains rolling quietly through with their coloured LED lights and vivid decals.
Yeah this is a big part of my point- leaving the appearance of the train up a engineers who will fall back on justifiable notions like doors being yellow for higher visibility means that the opportunity to use them as vast mobile billboards for themselves is largely lost.
Providing a colourway that offers a strong background for bold graphics to symbolise ideas like the electric propulsion, air conditioning, free wifi etc is an great chance to reach out to people outside the trains, potential new users, especially those stuck in traffic. That’s why I included the Copenhagen image not because of the colour.
There are other ways too to increase the cool electric image in the train design… how about strings of LEDS around the front and sides, be fantastic at night, and hey, not bad for visibility either.
That red danger line around the top could easily be in LEDs..
My favourite futuristic train concepts:
http://flic.kr/p/5foUbm
http://cdn-static.cnet.co.uk/i/c/blg/cat/gadgets/hstrainmain.jpg
LEDs are definitely the way to go, both for safety (on trains, crossings, at stations) and for sheer awesomeness.