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Standalone Digital Cartography
Narrative & Books
Campaigns & Branding
Other Work
Links
The Kernow Bus Company
Branding, Digital Cartography, Livery Design, Advertising
2025-26
Branding, Digital Cartography, Livery Design, Advertising
2025-26
By November 2025, First Bus in Cornwall had been in decline for a couple of years. It’s visually messy fleet carrying neglected and tattered branding was quickly losing ground to a rival operator. “The Kernow Bus Company” was a hypothetical local identity and brand refresh for Cornish First Bus operations, reviving elements of a retired identity used by the company to position First Bus as a more “premium”, community-focused alternative to other operators.
The brand uses a dark green shade as the primary colour to evoke a sense of tradition, and to stand out from the red livery used by all other operators in the county. The logo of the brand is derived from the Chough, a bird symbolising Cornwall, in flight. It’s also inspired by classic aviation logos to infer speed and adventure.
There’s some more info below the image gallery!
The brand uses a dark green shade as the primary colour to evoke a sense of tradition, and to stand out from the red livery used by all other operators in the county. The logo of the brand is derived from the Chough, a bird symbolising Cornwall, in flight. It’s also inspired by classic aviation logos to infer speed and adventure.
There’s some more info below the image gallery!
Compared to it’s main competitor, which operated over 100 routes with no route-specific branding and minimal publicity, the Kernow Bus Company operated 14 popular routes, with each route being assigned a “brand colour” in a similar way to a metro line, which worked together within wayfinding elements and onboard information displays to make the company’s network simple to identify, navigate and remember.
These brand colours are attatched to a route as much as a route number would be, appearing in wider Transport for Cornwall material, such as the county bus timetable book. In the example below, the fifth image, the lime-green route 27 has the Kernow Bus Company’s primary dark green colour next to it to clearly mark it as a Kernow route within the wider Transport for Cornwall network.
Aiming to capitalise on it’s competitor’s lack of publicity material, the Kernow Bus Company aimed to grow deep ties with passengers, pushing the idea that the staff of the company are working to keep their neighbours moving from destination to destination, and that the staff can only do so if the community make use of the company’s services. Promotional material highlights individual staff members and the important work they do for their community, and the important journeys that passengers make. Another campaign aimed to promote bus usage via depicting the capped £3 bus fare as being cheap considering the experiences and convenience the brand’s bus services offered customers.
The brand also celebrates Cornwall’s culture, with advertising space being used to promote historical landmarks that are accessible by bus and Cornish language learning resources.
These brand colours are attatched to a route as much as a route number would be, appearing in wider Transport for Cornwall material, such as the county bus timetable book. In the example below, the fifth image, the lime-green route 27 has the Kernow Bus Company’s primary dark green colour next to it to clearly mark it as a Kernow route within the wider Transport for Cornwall network.
Aiming to capitalise on it’s competitor’s lack of publicity material, the Kernow Bus Company aimed to grow deep ties with passengers, pushing the idea that the staff of the company are working to keep their neighbours moving from destination to destination, and that the staff can only do so if the community make use of the company’s services. Promotional material highlights individual staff members and the important work they do for their community, and the important journeys that passengers make. Another campaign aimed to promote bus usage via depicting the capped £3 bus fare as being cheap considering the experiences and convenience the brand’s bus services offered customers.
The brand also celebrates Cornwall’s culture, with advertising space being used to promote historical landmarks that are accessible by bus and Cornish language learning resources.