Network SouthEast Railway Society

The Network SouthEast image was deliberately brash and colourful and the publicity materials - posters and leaflets - echoed this visual onslaught, although often with more style and subtly than the ubiquitous red paintwork! For an organisation extant for a brief eight years, the overall effect was a remarkably coherent public image, over a wide geographical area - a true testament to the drive, determination and vision of Network Director Chris Green.

The symbol selected to represent Network SouthEast was both simple and effective - the three slanting flashes of red, blue and grey stamped the allegiance of station, train, leaflet and staff member with a possessive homogeneity to compliment the familiar BR 'double arrow.' Design consultants Jordan Williams were accorded the task of redesigning the entire ambiance of all the ingredients that conspired to create the publicly perceived image, from infrastructure to apparel and publicity materials. Meanwhile Eddie Pond was allotted the artistic assignment of producing modernistic murals of varying degrees of abstraction and pictorial accuracy in a characteristic array of murky tones. Together with the new rich blue-flecked seat moquette, these served to imbue train interiors with an enhanced sense of locale and identity - not to mention an attempt to embrace culture.

Although station signs and suchlike were in the neat Helvetica typeface, leaflets displayed considerable variation General styles and lettering were regularly utterly different - the only common denominators being overall size and the Network SouthEast, or variant thereof, name and logo at the base. There appeared some superb examples of airbrush work and shading, idyllic interpretations of charmed landscapes, plus a variety of novel depictions of various subjects in addition to photographs.

The artwork was occasionally variable - a possible reflection upon the diverse parentage of these products - but in general the standard was high; concept, content and presentation all consistent with the design ideals indicative of quality and a commitment to providing accessible, intelligent information. Gone was the 1970s preoccupation with dull and muted hues - now superseded by an altogether more lively and colourful approach. The posters caught the eye, the leaflets invited taking and the messages too, might have invoked an involuntary response, for there were frequent offers of cut-price travel and money-saving ticketing schemes - an enterprising ploy on the part of NSE to boost off-peak travel and fill those empty seats. The figures demonstrate they succeeded - the exhortations to take the train for a day out perhaps materially enhanced by the quality of artwork so eloquently evoking a colourful countryside and coast.