Gerry Barney’s British Rail Logo in Creative Review’s Top 20

 

Gerry designed the logo - sometimes referred to as 'the arrows of indecision', 'the crow's feet' or 'the barbed wire' - at the prestigious design studio, Design Research Unit. The logo was part of a radical redesign of British Railway's identity. It included the shortening of the name to British Rail - the goal being to present the organisation as modern and streamlined.

 

Despite the logo's seeming simplicity it's a crafted design taking into account the way lines appear rather than are. Gerry, who trained as a lettering artist, deliberately thinned the angled bars, where they meet the horizontal bars, to achieve the appearance of a consistent thickness.

 

The fact that the logo is still being used is a testament to its effectiveness and resilience, especially given the breaking up of the nationalised railway. To this day it remains the only symbol to identify a station.