KC streetcars rolling along with their timeless new brand

Often the simple, elegant solution turns out to be the best approach to branding, but getting there may be an indirect path. In fact, it can take a year of traveling a circuitous route to find the correct solution.

Nicole Satterwhite, left, and 

Megan Stephens discussed

branding with #FXofKC members.

Willoughby Design of Kansas City, creators of the brand for KC’s new streetcar line, rode such a journey in the past two years. Megan Stephens, Willoughby president, and Nicole Satterwhite, creative director, talked with members of the Freelance Exchange of Kansas City about the branding process at a lunch meeting at Bloch Executive Hall at UMKC.

The KC Area Transportation Authority hired Willoughby in January 2014 to create a new brand identity for KC’s regional transit system as well as the coming streetcar – the new/old, public transportation system that the metro area eagerly anticipated. The project entailed creating an umbrella name and an identity that would unite the various metro transportation operators and give the public a consistent signage system, one map, one website and one fare card. With a total price tag of $102 million for the 2.2 miles of round-trip track route and the four streetcars, the branding project was indeed high profile.

Not just another logo

So the creative minds at Willoughby went to work. “We saw an opportunity to bring all of the transit lines serving the metro area together,” Megan says. “We didn’t want to create just another logo to add to the mix.”

Within a week of winning the contract for the branding work, the Willoughby firm was told it was time to pick the color for the streetcars, which were being manufactured in Spain, with final assembly in Elmira, N.Y. “It was a classic case of putting the cart before the horse,” Megan explains. “We didn’t even have a name yet for the streetcar and we faced this impossible deadline.” The firm pushed back, saying it needed more time, but the manufacturer was insistent and offered three options – red, blue or green. None was acceptable and the Willoughby team held firm that “Kansas City can do better.”

Months of research followed around the country and across the pond, with Willoughby creatives looking at what other cities use for colors and branding of their light rail systems. “We didn’t want to be gimmicky,” Megan says, and the brand had to be timeless, sophisticated, progressive and confident.

An elegant palette

The elegant solution, Nicole says, was to keep the colors simple. “So we chose pearl, graphite and platinum, and we specifically decided to not call them black, white and gray.” The simple palette created a neutral canvas that can hold graphics when needed.

Colors finally decided, it was time for the team to name the streetcar. Again the creatives went to work researching, testing and inventing various names – dozens of iterations in all, Megan says. “Line” was seriously considered, along with “Trax,” since KC already has the Max bus system and the Connex system in Johnson County.

Two-letter solution

“But very few cities have a claim for a two-letter identity,” Megan explains, like NY, LA and DC. And KC. Since KC is recognized in surveys by 80 percent of respondents across the country, “RideKC” was ultimately declared a winner. But RideKC what? RideKC Line? Maybe just RideKC with a logo? And then a flash of inspiration came to the Willoughby team. “What if the streetcar is just called a streetcar?” Megan says.

And so it became RideKC STREETCAR.

Then came logo development. The team looked at the universal symbol for rail transportation, adapted it, market tested it, revised it, streamlined it and made it resemble the actual streetcar with its sleek front end. Voila! The brand was finished, ultimately approved and rolled out across the metro area, in time for the early May debut of the streetcars.

If you have not yet had the experience of riding the RideKC STREETCAR, do hop on for a spin around downtown. It’s free and fun.