Leading train travel into the space age
Herbert Matter's 1954 logo for New Haven Railroad.
As air and car travel proliferated during the America post-war period the rail networks found themselves with new competition and a growing perception among the population that they were old-fashioned. New Haven Railroad, under threat from these new transport networks and alongside other financial pressures, installed Patrick B. McGinnis as the new president in 1954. McGinnis, prone to bravado promised that, in his hands, he would “ lead train travel into the space age”.
McGinnis’ wife Lucille, who had been trained in the arts and was working with Florence Knoll on the executive suite at Grand Central Terminal, convinced her husband that a new logo was needed to outwardly signal to the public the new ambitious outlook that McGinnis had for New Haven Railroad.
This would also help better align visual communications with the company’s prior programme of extensive modernisation that had created “one of the most modern fleets in the country”. The design of the railroad’s new logo was undertaken by Swiss photographer, designer and professor Herbert Matter.
After sketching over 100 ideas Matter developed a striking typographical style and composition of New Haven Railroad’s initials. Extended, geometric and rational, the arrangement of type and the gestalt of their combined forms brought to mind the cross-section of a rail, modular cargo holds and passenger carriages.
A vertical arrangement of black and colour, often used full bleed, enhanced the immediacy and impact of the logo and formed the basis of the railroad’s visual identity. This was then applied to new locomotives, lighters, pocket watches, playing cards and timetables. Following this, Matter was given a more formal position, becoming the Design Director role at New Haven Railroad.
Today, the logo can still be seen at some stations, surviving the bankruptcy of New Haven Railroad in 1961 and then its merger in 1968 with Penn Central.
Thank you for subscribing to Logo Histories. If you enjoy reading this short you may also enjoy these resources from the same team:
Brand Basics – Automated Brand Guidelines maker.
Brand Archive – Research tool for brand designers.
LogoArchive Website – Searchable modernist logo archive & research tool.
LogoArchive Shop – Vintage design books & LogoArchive Zines.
BP&O – Contemporary design editorial.