Large Scale Central

Logo

Hello All,

I am working on some logo ideas for my railroad. Simplicity and low detail is the goal. My railroad is modern industrial and so far 2 locomotives an NW2 Santa Fe and a GP38-2 CSX.

The color scheme is the blue on yellow but that will probably change. Any and all comments are appreciated and needed for me to decide. I have multiple versions of these logos as well as more ideas popping into my head. Call me crazy but I feel I cannot move on with my railroad until I have this logo finalized.

So here they are…

Personally, I like the first one.

First or 3rd one , blue over gray.

Personally, I’d use the top 3 and create a 4th, which would be number 3 in reverse colors, like you did with 1 and 2…

reasoning for the 4 is: If you are painting loco’s and cars, which logo you use would be determined by the color location where the decal/logo would be set…

For example: Decal 1 would be placed on a yellow background car, while decal 2 would be placed on a blue background car…

Same would apply for 3 and the projected number 4…

My 2 cents worth…

I am a fan of the top one the most. As Pete mentioned over grey would look good. However many of these lines bought class 1 equipment and just painted their stuff over the old logos leaving the original color scheme of the parent RR. Not sure where you are headed with it in that sense.

3rd, cut in half, use top half.

I like the style of the 1st logo.

BUT: enlarge the “H” like in the 2nd and 3rd one.

Change the font in the Name line and stack like 3rd (two lines) but to the right of the BH logo, with the “Blue Hills” taller / larger.

John, I know what you mean about having logos in place! I spent countless hours on mine until I got just what I wanted, and enjoyed every minute of it!

I like the second logo; the H seems more intentional. I’m really curious as to what color schemes you come up with other than the blue and yellow. I like the blue and green in the other logos, but they are so close in value that they wouldn’t work in the BH logos. You’d probably would need to make either the blue or the green much darker and the other one lighter. Something like this (maybe pushed more even):

Keep us posted.

I had a couple of minutes while waiting here for my youngest son, so I played around a little and thought if you decide against the BH, maybe too close to the Burlington Northern, you could try something like this…just a thought:

So what if its “too close”. The 1:1 have been doing that for ages.

David Maynard said:

So what if its “too close”. The 1:1 have been doing that for ages.

Agreed. And that may be exactly what John is going for.

Thank You all for your input. I am going to try and make some adjustments based on your ideas then repost them for round 2. My intention was to pretty much copy the Burlington Northern logo. My wife suggested I post some of my earlier attempts (she seemed to like them better). My inspiration for the railroad name was from where I live. I travel through the Blue Hills reservation to and from work every day, Went to a vocational school called Blue Hills and was part of the Blue Hills Jaycees. Updates coming.

Thank You,

John

Fun. Keep sharing.

John Cushman said:

…My inspiration for the railroad name was from where I live. I travel through the Blue Hills reservation to and from work every day, Went to a vocational school called Blue Hills and was part of the Blue Hills Jaycees. Updates coming.

Thank You,

John

There seams to be a theme going on here.

There are some blue hill rattle snakes as well : https://friendsofthebluehills.org/hiking-near-boston/rattlesnake-hill/

Here is one picture of Blue Hills where I had got my earlier ideas from.

And now my earlier designs…

How do any of these look compared to the Burlington Northern copycat?

Sean McGillicuddy said:

There are some blue hill rattle snakes as well : https://friendsofthebluehills.org/hiking-near-boston/rattlesnake-hill/

Yeh Sean, I plan on using the 20 hill names in the reservation as yard names and stations. That way I don’t have to be to creative(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

Some notes from graphic design 101:

A LOGO should be instantly recognized base based on it’s, Colors, Shape, Style, Size and design. You should not have to read a logo, just recognize it, and know what it stands for.

Great examples ( you can instantly mentally visualize them ), McDonalds Golden Arches, Coca-Cola, D&RGW’s Flying Rio, etc.

KISS principle applies here.

My $.02

John Cushman said:

Sean McGillicuddy said:

There are some blue hill rattle snakes as well : https://friendsofthebluehills.org/hiking-near-boston/rattlesnake-hill/

Yeh Sean, I plan on using the 20 hill names in the reservation as yard names and stations. That way I don’t have to be to creative(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

That’s why I freelanced off an obscure local railroad from the past. Many stories already exists, I just have to adapt them a tad. The locations already have names, and the railroad had a roster, so I don’t have to “invent” what locos to have and what number each one should be, I just follow the roster. And the one or two locos that I have, that that railroad didn’t have, I just give them the next number in line.

John, I liked the last one because it has that abstract symbolism today’s logos often have. FWIW, it made me think of this.