ScotRail’s unfortunate flash of marketing inspiration - Vladimir McTavish
A minor storm brew up at the start of the week surrounding the controversial logo on an artist’s impression of ScotRail’s proposed new livery.
I use the term “artist’s impression” loosely as the images in question were quite clearly AI-generated and they included a very unfortunate faux pas.
What the “artificial intelligence” failed to notice and an actual human designer might have had their attention drawn to, was the sinister connotations in the new branding.
Many people were very quick to point out that it is virtually identical to the emblems worn in the 1930s by the British Union of Fascists. This was an openly racist and anti-semitic movement, very much modelled on the Nazi Party.
Its leader Oswald Mosely was less an admirer, more a clone of Adolf Hitler.
Obviously there were red faces all round at Scotland’s national rail operator, not to mention some predictable back-peddling.
Someone tried to claim that the badge was supposed to represent a bolt of lightning. Hardly an accurate representation of ScotRail’s services, as I’m sure any commuters on the Glasgow-Edinburgh shuttle would attest.
And they’re the lucky ones, unlike those who accidentally catch the slow train on its 90-minute meander through West Lothian and North Lanarkshire.
Some people have an unusual explanation for the use of the fascist imagery, that it is some bizarre subliminal message suggesting efficiency. After all, in the post-way years, Italians lucky enough to survive the tyranny of Mussolini would joke “Il Duce did many evil deeds, but at least he got the trains to run on time”.
Anyway, it now would appear that ScotRail have seen sense, and will not be using the “bolt of energy” logo, preferring to stay with its familiar saltire branding.
But will it help the trains run on time? Your guess is as good as mine. Time itself will tell.