I want to get off to a good start modeling wise in 2017, so this post is something that I hope will give me some extra motivation to work on the layout this year. While it wasn't one of my goals for the year, giving my layout a name seemed like a good idea moving forward. The name "basement layout" just wasn't all that cool.
A while back I put together two posts about my ideas for a future freelanced model railroad. This was back before I had started design and construction on the "basement layout". I had a good general idea of the theme, location, and era of this fictional railroad. I even came up with a name (Michigan Consolidated) and a paint scheme. Well, fast forward to now and I've done some tinkering with these ideas and made some changes.
A while back I put together two posts about my ideas for a future freelanced model railroad. This was back before I had started design and construction on the "basement layout". I had a good general idea of the theme, location, and era of this fictional railroad. I even came up with a name (Michigan Consolidated) and a paint scheme. Well, fast forward to now and I've done some tinkering with these ideas and made some changes.
I decided that I actually didn't like the name I came up with so it was back to the drawing board. I wanted to stick with something Michigan related because that's what I would like to model on my layout, even if it is a fictional representation of it. That being said, the new name for my layout and model railroad will be Great Lakes Northern. I'd like to loosely base my layout on late 80's to mid 90's northern
Michigan, hence the Great Lakes part. Here's the logo:
I designed the logo and word mark myself using the graphics design software Inkscape. It is not overly complicated and even looks good in just black and white. I'll have to work on the color scheme as that is something I need before I can start applying this to any custom painted locomotives.
As far as the logo itself, there is some symbolism by design. The pentagon shape and the five trees are meant to represent the five Great Lakes. The trees themselves represent northern Michigan forests and could even be seen as arrows pointing north. The lines along the bottom, at least the negative space inside them, are supposed to represent the two main lines of this fictional railroad. I'll have more details on that later.
I may even change the name and address of the entire blog to Great Lakes Northern since that sounds nicer than the current name. We'll see though, for now I'm just going to refer to the layout as the Great Lakes Northern.
UPDATE (4/26/17)
I've actually created an entirely new site for the layout: http://greatlakesnorthernmodelrr.blogspot.com/
I designed the logo and word mark myself using the graphics design software Inkscape. It is not overly complicated and even looks good in just black and white. I'll have to work on the color scheme as that is something I need before I can start applying this to any custom painted locomotives.
As far as the logo itself, there is some symbolism by design. The pentagon shape and the five trees are meant to represent the five Great Lakes. The trees themselves represent northern Michigan forests and could even be seen as arrows pointing north. The lines along the bottom, at least the negative space inside them, are supposed to represent the two main lines of this fictional railroad. I'll have more details on that later.
I may even change the name and address of the entire blog to Great Lakes Northern since that sounds nicer than the current name. We'll see though, for now I'm just going to refer to the layout as the Great Lakes Northern.
UPDATE (4/26/17)
I've actually created an entirely new site for the layout: http://greatlakesnorthernmodelrr.blogspot.com/
Love it. I'm modeling GTW Flint Sub. I do have a lot of D&M rolling stock. Keep up the good work and keep posting.
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