Firstly, I copied the outline of the correct train, which is a 170 Turbostar. I used this outline as a base for future designs. Originally, the London Midland livery I painstakingly copied using Adobe Illustrator has a rather crude finish in the far left. I exported to PNG (Portable Network Graphic), which loses the background, leaving just the train vector, and imported the file into Adobe Photoshop. I intentionally missed out the branding on the train, as this train was originally designed for an emulation of the Anglian and Midland Trains timetable.
In Photoshop, I sketched out a straight dimensional path, almost appearing as a platform the other side, and coloured the half of the background the same green as the train. I added the "Travel From" and distorted it to run along the side of the train. The "Shrewsbury to Birmingham" text is actually straight, and coloured the lighter green that can be spotted under the windows of the train. Lastly, I added the price to make it sound like a bargain, and extended the canvas to the bottom. This left a thin transparent strip, which I coloured black, and inserted the London Midland logo.
What I really like about this poster, is the accuracy and the time I took to get every detail of the vector, so people just have to skim an eye over the train, and they know it is London Midland.
What I feel brings the quality of the poster down, is the colour choice of the text by the train, and the unprofessional look of the text, looking like it's just been stuck on the advert. I will take this into account when doing my final piece.
For this poster, I simply changed the colour scheme to 'Thomson Connect' lievery. This consists of metallic red and silver, with special 'disability' yellow bars framing the doors: this technique would warn disabled people where the doors are, and the fact they would be opening at stations. I then opened the train in photoshop again, and used the same typeface as the logo ('Calibri'), using the idea of simplicity, I used the text in normal for the full sentence, and emphasised the destinations in bold. Lastly, I created the 'Thomson Connect' logo in a different file; this consisting of the same font, bold in capitals for 'Thomson' and normal in lower case for 'connect', resized to show a more crisp logo. I simply added this in, with the slogan: 'Faster connections with Thomson Travel' on a same shade of red strip, to show formality. This would enable the viewer to find out in the space of a quick glance that these trains may be going their way.
This poster was more of a plea for help, as this advertises the deceased Wrexham, Shropshire and Marylebone Railway. Firstly, I searched for a significant train; 67014 pulling three old intercity livery coaches.
This is significant as this was the train I had originally bought for my layout. The name of this locomotive is 'Thomas Telford', which might not be very easily made out. I originally copied this train, with black outline. When I realised black outline was very dominant, in my attempt to take it out, I found out the whole copy was flawed. So I replaced the black with white. I then opened the image in photoshop, and added white to black gradient from left to right. Having done this, I saved this as a jpeg, and opened it again in photoshop, to add the body of the advert. I used the simple WWII idea of 'We need YOU!' that was used to encourage people to enlist for the army. I then enlarged the 'You' to hopefully appeal to the audience, that this advert wanted them to do something about this. Further down, I used a black and yellow to talk about the great wonders of the WSMR, and used yellow to highlight the key points; comfort, countryside, golden era of rail, fine cuisine, outstanding service. I then used the 'obvious' tactic, stating that the WSMR was this train. Lastly, I explained in a final paragraph why help was needed, and how to help.
I again used the strip at the bottom of the poster, putting a dominant 'The WSMR Campaign' in red.
Also, I used the idea of assuming someone had already done it, putting 'Thank you' in italic, to hopefully encourage them to do so.
This poster is undoubtedly my favourite. A long time ago, I created a dizzying amount of history for Gainsridge, stating the operation went from GBLS (Gaynes Bridge Locomotion Services) through GRL (Gainsridge Railway Limited) to AMGR (Anglian and Midland Gainsridge Railway. Once this was done, I decided to create the logos for this rail companies. For AMGR, I wanted a emblem of Anglian and Midland. I soon settled for Norwich Cathedral, and Ironbridge. I then copied these as silhouettes, and exported to PNG.
One day, I was feeling experimental, and wondered what would happen if I loaded the Norwich Cathedral into a file, and turned it to a canted angle. Curious, I decided to try it, and hit a brainwave. I quickly worked to colour one side of the long straight that had been created on the left with the colours of 'One Anglia Railways', using dominant colours to advertise 'Norwich' and 'train'. Lastly, satisfied with the simplicity of the poster, I added a sky blue to the background, and one other thing I found very quickly through my rail travels and poster research. There are usually the appropiate web addresses somewhere in small on the poster. Unfortunately, I couldn't find out the web address for 'One Anglia Railways' as Abellio have taken over with 'Greater Anglia'. But the address on the right is genuine, and you will soon find yourself on Norwich Cathedral's website if you copied it into the web browser.
Some of the main things I made clear to do with this poster is the idea I created in the head if this was at my station. You would read the 'Norwich' part, get attracted to the colours in the left, and turn around to see the 'One Anglia' livery patiently waiting at a platform. You would immediately realise that is the train to take to visit the legendary cathedral.
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