Portsmouth Park and Ride was in need of a bit more character injected into their brand, so they came to me for exactly that: character design. With the introduction of a new service and the re-introduction of the smartcard, they wanted to see a more approachable and customer friendly way of presenting themselves. We achieved this by creating a set of characters from different walks of life and cultures to represent the benefits that using the Park & Ride endows. I created a few options for them and the finalists were nerdy family man Ned (and his family), savvy business woman Nel and overseas student Nina.
With the new characters, I introduced a few new, lighter, colours into the brand to differentiate from the dark blue background that so often dominates the Park and Ride materials.
The new characters feature in some of the new large scale vinyl prints at the actual Park & Ride terminal, and an animation outlining the use of the smartcard.
