I know I know, this logo is old and there are lots of interesting and cool projects going on now like Landor's City of Melbourne re-branding or Wolff Olins' of AOL. But those are well covered. Plus I've never been to Melbourne. I have however taken the train to New Haven many times. I think when I was a little younger I dismissed Herbert Matter's logo as simplistic, but I changed my mind long ago and now I think it's great. I love how stacking the letters vertically, and the fact that they have wide horizontal serifs, suggest railroad ties and the cause the logo to invoke train tracks. Not in a hit you over the head way, but in a beautifully simple and subtle way.
The Identity previous to Matter's
was beautiful in it's own right:
But since people often referred to the train company as the New Haven Railroad (the headquarters were in NH for one thing) the obvious route was to simplify the name. An ambitious executive named Patrick B. McGinnis hired Matter for the redesign in 1955. Less than two years later McGinnis was gone, leaving the Railroad in bad financial shape. For all McGinnis' failings the redesign was at least successful. And even though by 1961 The N.H.R. went into bankruptcy, You can still occasionally see a train in Grand Central with the NH logo on the side.
Below Herbert's exploration:
And as it turns out there a Herbert Matter Documentary coming out this
.
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