Start begins redesign of Trainline website

Start Design has started work this week on a full, six-figure redesign of the Trainline website, www.thetrainline.com, which the consultancy originally designed in 1999.

The revamped site is scheduled to go live in March 2002. The company is expanding its services for customers, such as introducing a hotel booking service and enlarging its train timetables.

Start has also been briefed to develop the interactive aspect of the site, as well as on-line promotions in partnership with other organisations.

The Trainline logo remains unchanged except for slight modifications, including dropping the ‘www’ from the identity, says Start managing director Mike Curtis. The blue colourway, which is ‘a major part of the brand’, will not be touched in the overhaul of the site, Curtis adds.

Start had already developed a set of brand guidelines for Trainline, and the modifications to the site follow user feedback and Trainline’s wish to grow its business services, such as corporate bookings.

‘The revamp is a functional redesign,’ says Curtis. It incorporates a considerable back-end redesign from Web development consultancy Reading Room.