Just for the younger ones or those unfamiliar with the brands, colours and whatever else we have seen in Tyne & Wear, Co Durham and Northumberland over the years since de-reg... Here is a rough guide.

Late 70's - 1986.
Northern and twpte contracted services saw mainly two different colours.
Northern Poppy Red or Yellow and White horizontal banding.

1986 - early 90's.
Go-ahead Northern: Red and White horizontal banding around the bus.
Introduction of local identities above front wheel to reflect operating area towards end of this era.
Small strides made with marketing individual services, with introduction of Big Orange and Supershuttle brands.

Early - late 90's.
Divisions of the company following strike action, giving local identities such as Wear Buses (Grey and Green), VFM (mixture of blues), Go Gateshead (adaptation of Go-ahead Northern with blue diagnonal band), Northern (adaptation of previous colour scheme) Coastline, etc. There were also adaptations with the Wear Express and Superliner fleet colour schemes.

Late 90's - 2006.
Introduction of Go North East and another new colour scheme of yellows, reds, blues after initial Go Wear Buses, Go Ok Travel, Go Xpress idea was scrapped..
There were two versions of this colour scheme, with a slight variation of it, on a couple of the ex-airport DAFs.

2006 - present.
An ever changing array of colours, brands (similar to ideas inspired by other operators in other parts of the country), standard fleet livery, reintroduction of Northern, axing of Northern and reintroduction of Go North East.

If that isn't the sign of a company suffering from an identity crisis, I'm not sure what it is.

Whereas United/Northumbria had their own identities from 86 until takeover and two brand refreshes as Arriva.

Busways had a trim unique to their patch, stuck with the twpte colours and have since had a couple of brand refreshes since the Stagecoach takeover in the late 90's.

The company needs to find a scheme and stick with it.

I just wish I could have bought shares in a bus paint company pre-deregulation!