2012-01-17
post/16012320171
photo 17:25:05
![british rail design cover by smallritual on Flickr:
The [Danish] design of this book looks like 2006, in British terms, rather than 1986. the 1980s were not a good period for swiss-style modernism in Britain. The book celebrates the British Rail corporate identity at a time when it seemed outdated in Britain - a case of ‘you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone’. The British have never been very good at sticking to rational design systems - they get distracted by romanticism and nostalgia.
(Edited for capitalisation.)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxx30heIzF1qz4vjro1_500.jpg)
british rail design cover by smallritual on Flickr:
The [Danish] design of this book looks like 2006, in British terms, rather than 1986. the 1980s were not a good period for swiss-style modernism in Britain. The book celebrates the British Rail corporate identity at a time when it seemed outdated in Britain - a case of ‘you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone’. The British have never been very good at sticking to rational design systems - they get distracted by romanticism and nostalgia.
(Edited for capitalisation.)
post/16012376473
photo 17:25:05
station timetable by smallritual on Flickr.
Steve Collins (who goes by smallritual online) has been posting scans of the nearly impossible to find Danish Design Council book on British Rail’s design and identity. As he writes of the pocket timetables, “In a sense, the invisibility of this kind of design is the point.” Certainly I look at that now as almost a work of art, whereas for most of my life it was just background.
post/16012412847
photo 17:25:00
HST power cab section by smallritual on Flickr.
Another from Steve Collins, one of a few cross-sections and elevations he’s posted. I have a particular fondness for the InterCity 125 cab shape. It feels like future.
