(05 Jul 2019, 4:17 pm)ne14ne1 wroteEveryone is entitled to their opinions and everyones tastes are different. I suspect the majority of customers don't really give two hoots what colour their bus is, what name has been given to the route, or what font the brand uses.
Some may think of GNE as being known for having a diverse range of liveries - others may see GNE as having a wide collection of mismatched brands and confused identities.
Personally I think they've got a few smart route brands, but equally several look rather amateurish & dated now or even look like they were competition entries from joe public.
I'm in favour of some standardisation now. Drop all route brands except for a handful of flagship routes, plus express services.
Sometimes when I see one of the latest 2019 corporate liveried buses (ie no blue front panel) I think wow, now that looks smart, clean and professional - a corporate image to be proud of - just present the whole fleet like that, (again, maybe with the exception of just a handful of flagship routes and expresses).
I agree with you there. But it depends on your definition of flagship routes.
For me I would keep the independent branding on Angel, Castles Express, X9/X10, Tyne Valley Ten (although change it so it doesn't look like it was designed by a primary school), 56 (once again change it as it's currently awful), Quaylink, Cobalt and Coast.
Basically, any route that has competition or goes along a route where a lot of people can see it
I like the idea of Xlines but they've already started diluting it too much for my taste. There is no way on earth 45/46/47 deserve to be branded as an express route. Sure, it's none stop from MetroCentre to Newcastle, but it might as well have been already since people rarely used them stops.