Harnessing an city icon to create a new vision, and a new legend

Grey NX buses with a flash of blue just didn't quite sell the dream of 'Britain's Electric Bus City' - so with a swift call to yours truly, I was onboard and ready to roll. I grew up in and around the city of Coventry, and so I approached this project with even more passion and enthusiasm than usual - I was uniquely placed to produce something that 'spoke' to the people of the Sky Blue city, and I should know, I was and am one of them.

Coventry has always had a legendary connection with the elephant (as odd as that sounds) - the city first began using its well known elephant and castle arms in the 13th century as a symbol of strength and resilience, and with iconography across the city (both modern and ancient) to murals in the hip ‘Fargo Village’ and even the mascot of Coventry City FC (‘Sky Blue Sam’), the elephant has become Coventry's bold, brilliant figurehead, recognised and loved by residents and visitors alike. 

My design saw a modern re-development and re-interpretation of the famed elephant and castle arms, into a new, stylised ‘electric elephant' icon - with TfWM hexagon on back and three fully-charged batteries replacing the famous three towers of the city crest elephant - plus a new punchy and modern name for the scheme - 'Coventry's Electric'

Add in some sky blue swooshes of colours, and some city-specific copywriting (also by me) and you've got yourself an electrifying combination which helped to launch 'Coventry's Electric', raise local and national awareness, and champion the bus as a greener-yet-still-sky-blue way to get around the city.