Taxi taxi
Some thoughts and exploration on the Addison Lee rebrand
Like a lot of people in London I’m familiar with Addison Lee, one of the largest private hire taxi firms in London. Their black people carriers with minimal branding have caught my eye whenever I’ve been stuck on a bus or walking past traffic for the past ten years.
Perhaps not as synonymous with London as the black cab they are nevertheless an integral part of London.
It stands to reason that in this competitive post Uber app world of taxis they would rebrand. And rebrand they did.
Goodbye winding road
London based Whistlejacket was commissioned to work on the rebrand in January of this year. Their brief, according to Design Week, was to move the identity on from the original design completed in the 1970s.
Kathy Kielty, Creative Director at Whislejacket, says that “The yellow is a visual shorthand for taxis and because the brand is often seen on the streets on cars that are passing by quickly, we also wanted something that stands out and grabs your attention. The division between the A and the L also represents the two sides of a road, in a nod to Addison Lee’s original logo”.
Valid points but for me two immediate things sprang to mind.
- The division between the A and L creates two yellow lines which is normally associated with no parking.
Further to these two initial thoughts the thing that struck me most about the rebrand was the logo treatment which is essentially a yellow A and L.
The quirky winding street from the original logo has gone. The type treatment itself is nice, it feels more modern and premium, but doesn’t seem to work too well with the new logo.
Hello again winding road
Based on these observations I quickly put pen to paper to think about a logo which has two core principles.
- Retains the spirit of the original logo
- Is simplistic and adaptable
This is what I came up with. By no means a complete or finished brand but something which, in my opinion, modernises the brand while also retaining some of the heritage that’s been built up over the past 40 years.
The final treatment is easily seen as an A and L as well as a road.
The start and end points of the line are on the same plane to signify the linear journey, going from point A to point B.
They could also be extended to create repeating patterns.
The logo has a simple animation treatment which reinforces the idea of movement.
The logo can also be used as a loader which loops back and forth, like a journey to and from two locations, which can be used when the app is looking for a signal/searching/loading.
Original rebrand can be viewed and discussed at Under Consideration. Thanks to Emma Kingsnorth for help with the logo animation.
Note: Having worked at a lot of agencies, and on some rebranding projects in the past, I’m under no illusions that the final treatment delivered to Addison Lee was by no means the agencies first, preferred or ideal solution. Everyone has opinions. Working with large corporations normally results in a lot of opinions. My exploration of the Addison Lee brand is not meant to cause offence to anyone at Whistlejacket. I have no idea what the full brief was or what the feedback was during the design process. I simple had an idea that I wanted to briefly explore.
