A colourful, bouncy-looking thing is the new logo for NSW public transport
April 19, 2013
The New South Wales Government has unveiled its new public transport brand, which includes the word ‘Transport’ and a symbol supposed to represent the ‘pace and choice of transport services in NSW’, and ‘going from one destination to another with ease and confidence’.
NSW Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian launched the logo with new uniforms for Sydney Trains staff yesterday.
Colour Variations of the logo, dubbed ‘The Hop’, will progressively replace transport logos for Sydney’s buses, ferries and trains across the transport network.
But the logo has already faced broad public criticism, with some people comparing
it to Tennis Australia’s logo, also featuring colourful arches.
Berejiklian says public transport users are currently bombarded with hundreds of competing logos, thousands of posters, multiple websites and around 800 different brochures.
She says the new transport brand will make all public transport information and facilities across transport modes more recognisable.
“Unlike other global cities like London and Paris, we have never had one integrated and recognisable brand for transport,” Berejiklian says.
In the past, each NSW public transport entity has managed its own brand.
NSW Transport Customer Experience Deputy Director General Tony Braxton-Smith says this approach led to a plethora of logos, identities, marks, strap-lines, graphic devices and visual communication tools, with little consistency.
He says customers have told the department the transport system is confusing and hard to navigate.
Braxton-Smith says the new brand has been tested with customers, who gave it the tick as a fresh, integrated and connected image for transport.
“During testing customers said the new brand captured the changes underway in the transport system. They used words such as integrated, energetic, connected, on the go, friendly, contemporary, fresh, progressive, appealing and not government-like,” Braxton-Smith says.
“They also saw that it was distinctively NSW through its shape, which was seen to resemble the Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House, as well as people travelling across the state from the coast to the outback.”