Four groups vie for Eurostar branding brief
Wolff Olins, Fallon, advertising agency WCRS’ branding arm Dave and a fourth, unnamed group are competing in the pitch to rebrand Eurostar, Design Week understands.
The international train operator is looking to implement a new visual identity in preparation for the end of its monopoly next year, when other train firms will be allowed to run high-speed services through the Channel Tunnel.
Eurostar will pick a winner at the end of this week, according to a source close to the pitch, who reveals that the new branding must sit alongside the current visual identity for the next two years.
The identity will be phased in slowly, eventually replacing the original Eurostar logo, which was created by Minale Tattersfield in the early 1990s and has remained virtually unchanged since then.
Minale Tattersfield claims that it made the longlist for the current branding pitch before losing out in the final stages. The consultancy’s managing director London Marcello Minale reports that one of Eurostar’s original pitch requirements was for groups to have offices in Paris, Brussels and London.
‘Although the branding exercise is being led by the UK, Eurostar still has very strong partners in SNCF and the Belgian railway companies,’ says Minale. ‘In France, Eurostar is seen as a French and international brand and the same is true in Belgium, so it is important to understand these other markets, as well as the UK.’
Fallon works regularly on Eurostar marketing, and this year created a campaign to celebrate its 15th anniversary.
The winning consultancy will join Italian transport design group Pininfarina on Eurostar’s revamp. Pininfarina was appointed in April to create new carriage interiors and livery for Eurostar’s 28 trains. Also working on Eurostar is The Yard Creative, which is redesigning the buffet cars (DW 14 May).
Eurostar was unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.
TRACK RECORD
- Eurostar’s current logo (pictured) will sit alongside the new branding for two years in a phased roll-out of the new identity
- Minale Tattersfield created the branding in 1992-3
- The logo’s three wavy lines, making up the ‘E’ of Eurostar, represents the British, French and Belgian railways working together, while the star identifies their common future goal and reflects high-quality services, according to Minale Tattersfield
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do not fix something that is not broken.
as a british and a european who has worked throughout the continent, the eurostar brand and product design is one of those things that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside as a pan-european designer.
and i will be honest, which is going to offend a lot of people but the big london agencies have not produced anything credible for an international stage in the last five years. i believe that this brand is going to be tortured into something like the london 2012 brand which becomes a patronising intrepretation of “lisbon treaty” europe.