30 June 2015

[logo] Have You Seen The New Portland Streetcar Logo?

3201.
I noticed this one a few weeks back. The Portland Streetcar, enjoying expansion to the east side and the prospect of actually closing a loop once the Tilikum Crossing is finally open, has a new look for its logo. Before, it look thusly:


The old look, with the city silhouette and the crossing tracks, is still on the stop's signs. It's a nice logo, pretty basic, rather flat. Gets the job done, though.

But then I saw this, now appearing on the streetcars themselves, though not at the stops yet:


Kind of nifty, no? There's more thought and deliberation with the type, which has an echo of Underground and Gill Sans. The logo has, rather refreshingly, avoided the driver to have something obviously Portland-esque in it, and has gone for a total abstraction. It reminded me of something more than a clever opened-circle and an abstract S. Not that I wasn't enjoying the suggestion of tracks effectively communicated by the break in the S-form.

And then I thought of the German S-bahn, and it's standard S-in-a-circle logo, which you'll see right here. The S-bahn is comparable in service to the Portland Streetcar; the Stadtschnellbahn provides more local and street level, perhaps you'd say 'tram' (in the European street-train sense rather than the American gondola-hanging-from-a-great-height sense) level service … much like the Portland Streetcar, which connects with its community in much more intimate way than the MAX, meant to pick you up here and get you out there, does.

A variation on the S-bahn logo, or the S-bahn logo being in inspiration? Sure. Why not?

We find the Portland Streetcar logo upgrade worthy. 

No comments: