F or this month’s new take on a defunct bus operator’s identity, we have chosen Citibus Tours, which began life as a coach operator in

1979 and operated buses from 1983 until 1996.

In August 1983, it took advantage of relaxed road service licensing rules to start a shoppers’ service between Middleton and Harpurhey. Deregulation saw it establish itself on the Manchester-Middleton corridor and as far out as Ashton and Oldham, initially with single-deckers and later mainly with double-deckers, all acquired secondhand.

In July 1993 it was acquired by Lynton Travel, owner of County Bus & Coach — the eastern part of what had been London Country North East — and in 1995 Lynton sold Citibus to GM Buses North, which absorbed it into its main business the following year.

To stand out and compete in a busy city like Manchester, we decided that a friendly, refreshing approach to a new identity and livery was required for our revival of Citibus, now styled CitiBus.

In a relative break from livery tradition, we have developed a colourful upbeat cityscape design, teamed with playful typography and language to create a brand identity people would warm to. It is reminiscent of children’s television, a bit idealistic, and that is what makes it endearing. In summary this new, improved Citibus is a friendly fellow.

We are in an age where companies are encouraged to have ‘conversations’ with their customers via social media, so there is huge expectation of customer feedback. With that in mind, it can only be a positive if a brand has an approachable friendly persona; like starting your customer relationship on the right foot. Or starting your bus journey for

that matter.The striking logotype has strong use of

colour, with the two-tone blue helping with readability – making it easily recognisable. For the football fans among you, the choice of a red and blue for the logo should mean a little more harmony on match days.

The strapline ‘Better buses, Better city’ is a bold claim to suggest CitiBus is the operator trying to improve city life with better transport provisions – both admirable objectives. The branding has a light-hearted tone and the individual elements could be applied successfully across all brand executions as part of an integrated marketing campaign.

We envisage that the livery’s blue would be the base paint with front bumpers having flat colours so touch ups from scuffs and scrapes can be corrected easily. Design elements such as trees, buildings and clouds would be printed vinyls and split into small groups for ease of replacement in case of further damage.

Contravision has been kept to a minimum since the complexity of the design on the lower body of the bus lends itself to have clean clear space on the top half. The clouds are semi-transparent and would not obstruct passenger vision.

All in all, this bus among others that serve Manchester would certainly get noticed. Our design choice may be ambitious and controversial, but overall the approach is one of fun. ■

A FRIENDLY FELLOW

The real Citibus livery in February 1989 on 23 (MCK 223J), a Pennine-bodied Leyland Panther new to Preston Corporation in 1971. CLIFF BEETON

IDENTITY PARADECreative agency The MHD Partnership imagines what sort of livery a deregulation era Manchester independent might adopt today, 20 years after its blue buses disappeared from the city’s streets

56 www.busesmag.com December 2015