South Eastern Trains

The Challenge:

South Eastern Rail needed a new sonic identity to use across their various touchpoints.

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The Approach:

‍After testing different approaches, leaning on sound design was the right path. How can we use sounds familar to a train to create something memorable?

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The Solution:

The sound is based on the naturally occuring doppler effect you get when a train flies by; we first recorded a large sample set of trains to experiment with. Then by carefully selecting the best suited recordings, we were able to enhance certain frequencies to draw some harmony out of them and layer them together. The sonic logo is a IV-I progression, followed by a familiar train announcement of the brand name.