BC Transit Livery
May 6th, 2009
Design:
Client: BC Transit, Victoria, BC
Date: 2008
Photos: R.A. Paterson
Nothing official yet, but it looks like this is the new BC Transit livery. Interestingly, the company began experimenting with new paint schemes on the buses before solidifying the identity itself. The first examples of the new livery design actually used the old red and blue colour scheme and featured only the wordmark portion of the new logo. Rumor has it that the design was developed in-house, not by a graphic/communication department, but in the body shop. The new colour scheme apparently came next, after ‘corporate’ suggested incorporating green to emphasize the environment (of course).
At first, I was a bit skeptical about the new colours – I tend to get sentimental about these things and the old red and blue livery has been around for decades – but they’re growing on me. The paint scheme itself isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but it looks pretty sharp on the regular buses. I’d say it’s an improvement. The double-deckers on the other hand are a bit of a train wreck… I love negative space as much as the next guy, but this is ridiculous. I guess no one considered how the design would translate to the larger buses (which make up a good portion of the Victoria fleet).
With advertising the designs fare even worse. You might think that all that white space on the double-deckers would be perfect for advertising, but it only seems to contribute to the unfinished look. On the smaller buses, the ads cover up half of the wordmark. Though some might consider this a good thing (hey, why not hide the new logo all together!), I’m sure this is not what the designers had in mind.
It was great to see the early experiments coming out of the body shop, too bad they stopped so early in the process. At the very least I hope they’ll turn out a few more versions to work out the kinks before rolling this out in the rest of the province.
-Michael Erdmann
Entry Filed under: Graphics,Transportation
4 Comments Add your own
1. The CANADIAN DESIGN RESOU&hellip | May 6th, 2009 at 09:16
[...] Columbia (except for Metro Vancouver), has been exploring a new identity including this logo and a new livery. The rebrand has yet to launch system wide, but we’ve been living with the new identity in [...]
2. Joe Clark | May 7th, 2009 at 15:24
The typography is atrocious.
3. John Ryan | May 7th, 2009 at 19:22
Yikes. Can you even call these buses branded?
One could very easily confuse this for an anonymous coach or tour bus.
By no means should they be decked out head to toe in brand elements (to paraphrase Mike, negative space is great) — but an entire fleet of vehicles represents a huge blank canvas on which to express BC Transit’s identity and brand personality, and this livery is borderline invisible.
4. r.a. paterson | May 8th, 2009 at 09:44
I’m not crazy about the rebranding however, I am sympathetic to it’s historical associations: i.e. the twin stripes on a light, usually white/off-white, sometimes with gray background highlights, see: http://www.busdrawings.com/Transit/Britishcolumbia/Victoria/1959tdh4512/738.jpg; or http://www.busdrawings.com/Transit/Britishcolumbia/vancouver/cd52tc/van3406.jpg; or even http://www.busdrawings.com/Transit/Britishcolumbia/vancouver/t6h4523n/1976t6h4523n/9502.jpg.
However, the thin stripe livery looks positively silly on the double deckers, which is why when I saw it for the first time (http://www.flickr.com/photos/bcpaterson/2477030230/sizes/o/in/set-72057594061468976/) I thought we would see the “ad-bombed” (as one poster described it) bus as a de facto standard, i.e. branding subsumed to the ads. The Bugs, a frequent commenter on flickr and who works at BCT, I think, said the new CEO, ex of BC Ferries, wanted LESS ads on the new buses.
I suspect we’ll see a new design for the double-deckers in the not too distant future; not that I have a shred of evidence to support that theory. Just that any sensible person would welcome it.
Also I HATE the typography, but that’s just me. What to reommend? Not sure, but what BCT opted for just looks so unimaginative.
Don’t know if you say my comment, but the new livery does look remarkably like the one used by the St Catharines transit … see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hlast/2972805351/.
As the branding makes its way on to more and more buses here in Victoria I find myself quite ambivalent in my feelings about it … nothing about it really grabs one’s attention … however, it may grow on me … find myself almost happy now when I see a ratty old bus in the previous paint scheme.
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