Arriva unveils Cross Country rail branding

Transport company Arriva has unveiled the livery and brand identity of its new train company, Cross Country, which will become the longest network franchise in the UK. The work was undertaken by Brand Environment, which created the bid document that originally helped Arriva win the franchise in March. The service was finally launched last week. The consultancy had only eight weeks to develop the cornerstones of the new brand, including its logo, typefaces, imagery, colour palette, uniforms and promotional material, as well as changing the livery on all Cross Country’s new rolling stock, and ensuring it complied with health, safety and accessibility guidelines.


The project also involved a last-minute trip to Germany to visit the factory of vinyl maker M3 to check that the right colour vinyl was being produced. ‘It was very fast work,’ says Brand Environment creative director Shaughn McGurk. ‘There was no time to develop brand guidelines – we just had to communicate with all the other design groups involved as best we could.’


Graphico was responsible for the company’s website, while Cogent Elliot executed the advertising campaigns. Brand Environment worked with verbal identity expert John Simmons to develop the brand’s tone of voice.

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  • Shaughn McGurk November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    The vinyl maker in Germany is 3M not M3 as stated.

    Although I’m not sure I actually said we had to communicate ‘as best we could’, thanks very much for the coverage as all the agencies who collaborated deserve fair recognition for their considerable efforts.

    Cheers
    Shaughn

  • Shaughn McGurk November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    To continue the practice of everyone receiving fair recognition for their efforts, while Brand Environment certainly provided identity and livery concepts for the CrossCountry bid, I think the bid document was actually put together by FourIV.

    My apologies for being a pedant.

    Cheers
    Shaughn

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