Ant May wrote:
"David" wrote in message
...

On all printed publicity for underground and buses, the phrase 'Mayor
of London' is shown. Why is the ON at the end on LONDON always in red
whilst the rest of the text is in blue?


I think this was an initiative by London Tourist Board / Visit London after
the 9/11 terrorist attacks - to emphasise the point that London was "On" by
which I guess they meant "We're open for business as normal". It seems to
have stuck ever since.

With regards to the logo being an initiative as a result of the 11th
September 2001 terrorist attacks in the States, this is wrong.

The LondON logo has, I believe, existed since the start of the GLA in
2000. I suspect that Ken Livingstone had nothing to do with it, as he
had nothing to do with the design of City Hall, as they were decisions
taken before the 4 May 2000 mayoral election.

IIRC a group of central government civil servants were formed to become
the nucleus of the new GLA staff. They prepared various policy options
for the as yet unelected Mayor as well as getting the new organisation
off the ground. The LondON logo would have been one of their
initiatives, one that the current Mayor has had no need to change.


The inclusion of the LondON logo on TfL publicity material, known as
the 'Mayor's endorsement', is obviously intended to show that TfL is an
intergral organisation under the control of the Mayor. The colour of
the 'ON' part of the LondON logo reflects which part of TfL is the
subject of the publicity material.

The LondON logo was developed first, whilst the new TfL design
standards that were produced later (when TfL fully adopted the London
Transport roundel as the basis for the TfL logos).

The Totally LondON logo, used by Visit London (the renamed and
reorganised London Tourist Board) - which can be seen at the bottom of
their website at http://www.visitlondon.com - was a later reworking of
this original LondON idea, as was the London Development Agency logo
(http://www.lda.gov.uk/).


For further information on TfL's corporate desin standards see:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/about/corp...ards-tfl.shtml

This quote is taken from p12 (section 1.4) of the "Advertising and
public service information standard" document:

----------
Colour
The Mayor's endorsement should appear in Corporate blue except for
the last two letters 'ON'. These use either Corporate red (TfL and
its direct subsidiaries) or the roundel ring colour of the individual
business units. With single colour professional outputs the 'ON' is
to be reproduced at a 50% tint. When reversed out of a dark background
the 'ON' is to be in an appropriate second colour.
----------

Whilst some people probably got paid very well for all this design
work, and whilst the TfL design standards do read like they were
written by a particularly anally retentive individual, I nontheless
think that clear and consistent design is a valuable asset in large
organisations such as the GLA and TfL. The recurring LondON concept
just reinforces the idea that all these organisations are tied
together, working for the benefit of London.