Today is a massive day for Transport Designed, as we welcome Sam Jessup – our first ever guest blogger!
Hello! For those who don’t know me (and I’m sure that’s most of you), I’m Sam Jessup, brand believer, creative champion and all round design devotee – and now a guest blogger here on Transport Designed.
The reason for my (hopefully regular) guest appearance on this blog stems largely from what I do… I’m the Group Design Manager for Virgin Trains East Coast & Virgin Trains West Coast. I’m involved every day at the very top of design and branding on the UK rail network and I think this lets me bring you a unique design and rail industry insiders’ opinion, plus offer thoughts and insights from the knowledge I’ve accrued over the last near decade of working for, and passionately believing in, what Virgin Trains does and the brand it’s become.
Over my 9 (and a bit) years at Virgin, I’ve had a hand in pretty much all the design and branding you see and experience across any Virgin Trains journey on both the West Coast and East Coast routes. My teams and I are the creative power behind the pretty trains, if you will! Recent projects of note from me include the branding of the new Virgin Azuma train (which involved me learning some basic Japanese!), helping to launch Virgin Trains on the East Coast route (yes, I had a lot of help with that one) and my now infamous toilet sticker (please don’t flush hopes, dreams, goldfish etc…) which has been ‘borrowed’ by other TOCs, major coffee shop chains and even the Sochi Winter Olympics.
So, why this blog? Well, I’ve always been fascinated by transport design, rail in particular, and to be able to write for this fantastic blog gives me a great opportunity to share with you my passions and opinions on the world of rail design and branding. So, be prepared for a few things you might love, a few things you might hate and possibly even more of ‘what the heck is this guy on?!’ – but hey, if it provokes discussion, that’s what good design (and good blogging) is all about!
So stay tuned for some design future, design past, top 10s, bottom 10s and hopefully an insight into an industry steadily fighting it’s way out of its past and into bright, new future.
P.S. – you can also find me on Twitter – @samthebox.
