Logo Recognition #2
I've talked previously about logo recognition, and this weekend we've been on a roll. And they all lead to one thing... those blasted toot-toots!
Here's the first:
This is the age... OK, not too bad when you think on that this is in fact the old British Rail logo, still in use today for station direction signs and on tickets for the "Rail Settlement Plan", and adapted for the Train Operating Companies logo. But this is how the recognition came about, and it all started very innocently.
At Christmas he got a magic doodle pad which with the help of magnets you can draw monochrome pictures on a white board. Simple, really. Anyway, guess who drew a train while the little fella was playing with his wooden train set? Yes, the Muppet formerly known as Daddy. Why? Because now he frequently wants me to draw a train. And my forte is the profile of an HST (Intercity 125 to the people who wear jackets rather than anoraks). "Window, door", he shouts out as the image grows. "Wheels". And then the old BR logo gets drawn on the side. Puzzled. Stumped. Gotcha! Until a little later on, passing our local station's sign at the top of Station Road - "Train - Train - that way, Daddy - train". Bollocks! No Gotcha!
Next up:
CBBC Cbeebies? How do we get back to trains, I hear? Well, there's a really naff show called Chugginton. It's just not right, but on our first sit down visit to www.cbeebies.co.uk yesterday and again today a couple of clips from this show is what we like to watch. Especially the clip with the monkey (go on watch it - it's funny) - our monkey gets a little clip around the ear when the monkey clips the dog around the ear - hilarious he finds it. And he's banging on the table when the monkey bangs on the roof of the train. "Again!" I must have watched that clip a dozen times tonight (that's 24 clips around the ear - come on Social Services, there's a confession).
But how did we land there? In most modern browsers there's a neat little option called the favourite icon (favicon.ico) that displays in the browser's address bar or tab bar rather than the old folded page logo. Gives graphical identity to an otherwise bland bit of text. So when one of the Cbeebies characters, one of the little yellow traingle thingies, is used for the cbbebies website, we instantly get this pointed out. "Beebies". And then it's two clicks away from being slapped around the head purely for pleasure.
I haven't quite worked out how the "cake" logo (Starbucks, Sunday, after Socatots) works into being a train, but I'm on the look-out!
