Enjoying Basingstoke’s rebranded bus network
A couple of Wednesday’s ago I went to visit the Stagecoach empire in North Hampshire – including sampling their newly relaunched bus network in Basingstoke, the subject of today’s blog post.
Initial impressions
In a word – impressed. Having lived in Winchester or Southampton, all my life, I’ve kept a close eye on Basingstoke’s bus network. Stagecoach have spent years tweaking the network to find the best solution for Basingstoke. They just might have cracked it this time. Stagecoach partnered with Best Impressions to rebrand the network and both have done a great job – the branding is beautiful, desirable and balanced.
An Enviro 300 branded for Stagecoach’s Basingstoke route 2 to Tadley & Baughurst An Enviro 300 branded for Stagecoach’s Basingstoke route 6 to Winklebury & East Popley An Enviro 300 branded for Stagecoach’s Basingstoke route 1 to Brighton Hill An Enviro 300 branded for Stagecoach’s Basingstoke route 3 to South Ham
A few examples of the route specific branding used on Basingstoke’s local bus services.
Across the mediums
Best Impressions have done a great job of carrying the branding through to all of the other marketing mediums too – the timetables are a thing of pure beauty, especially considering the routes they’re advertising.
These timetable leaflets are a brillant evolution of the recently revised standard leaflets that Stagecoach South are using. This design is also carried across into the roadside posters, as shown on this poster I found for route 2 in Basingstoke bus station.
In summary
The new branding for Basingstoke is a much welcomed improvement over the previous Jazz branding (shown below). It’s a much more sophisticated approach that makes the vehicles feel more premium than they actually are!
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