Vehicle question - PIX truck trailers

[nkalanaga]

I have graphics, from the internet, for a Pacific Inland Express,  in Vancouver, BC, as far as I can tell, truck trailer.  However, the site I copied them from had no other data, just the picture.  So far, I haven't found a picture of one of their trucks.  Does anyone know which side is which?  Do the letters lean forwards or backwards?  Is the top image left or right side? 



Since Hank's Truck Pictures disappeared, the internet seems to have a very limited range of trucking company images.

[peteski]

Usually letters lean forward (to evoke feeling of speed), but I don't have any specific info on this logo.

[wcfn100]

Same company(?) but different logo.



Jason

[nkalanaga]

Peteski:  That was my thought, but I've seen enough going the other way that I didn't want just guess.  As sure as I did, either way, someone would come up with a picture proving me wrong!  Like the Great Northern and Rio Grande.  Both reversed their logos on steam tenders, but only on SOME tenders.  The GN had a reversed logo on some truck trailers as well, but again, only on some, even within a series.

Jason:  Thank you!  Lacking any other data, I suspect that the "modern" logo would lean the same way.  Of course, as with Peteski's suggestion, I could still be wrong, but this will at least justify doing it this way.

Incidentally, there was also a "PIE" trucking company in the US Northwest:  Pacific Intermountain Express.  Microscale used to have a decal set that included them, and I remember seeing a lot of their trucks in the 60s and 70s.  I wonder if either one crossed the border, and, if they did, anyone confused the two companies?  Maybe that's why Pacific Inland changed their logo from capital PIE to PIX?

[central.vermont]

Found these pictures of a model.
it seems that both lean to the right no matter what side. Not sure if it's correct or not.
Unfortunately I could not get a larger image to show.

Jon

[peteski]

I was just guessing, but as demonstrated, the slant can be either way.

[MK]

Usually letters lean forward (to evoke feeling of speed), but I don't have any specific info on this logo.

I would say the other way (despite the pictures already posted by Jason and Jon), lean backwards.  If a truck is going forward the air pushes everything back.  Think of someone sticking their head out the window of a car.  Hair flies towards the back.  So to evoke fast speed, the letters should be push towards the rear.

[nkalanaga]

MK:  That would  be my thought as well, but logo designers don't always think alike, nor do painters.

Peteski:  Looks that way.  Whoever did the artwork that I found went to a lot of extra work if both sides were supposed to be the same.  On the other hand, whoever did the model in CV's pictures probably had a good idea what they were doing, or they would have made the sides different.  I suspect that they had trailers done both ways, depending on the era, or the painter's whim's.

Were truck trailers with complex graphics lettered with decals, or vinyl letters, or stencils and paint, in the 70s?  If stencils, the variation could be due to one of the stencils being unavailable, for whatever reason.  That's part of the reason the Rio Grande narrow gauge stopped using reverse-slant lettering on one side of their tenders.  The reverse stencil was damaged, and since the only place it was used, after the standard gauge dieselized, was on the narrow gauge, it wasn't worth replacing.  The same could apply to stick-on lettering, why pay for two different styles.

[wcfn100]

Jason

[DKS]

I would say the other way (despite the pictures already posted by Jason and Jon), lean backwards.  If a truck is going forward the air pushes everything back.  Think of someone sticking their head out the window of a car.  Hair flies towards the back.  So to evoke fast speed, the letters should be push towards the rear.

Doesn't work that way. Look at any "speed lettering" and it leans to the right, just like italics.









Even on the other side, it leans to the right... most of the time.



On the very rare occasion that it leans to the left, it tends to look strange, even suggesting it's going "backwards."

[MK]

Doesn't work that way. Look at any "speed lettering" and it leans to the right, just like italics.

Never said anything about leaning to the right or to the left.  Only in the direction of which the wind is blowing. 

EDIT: I think you misinterpreted what I said and I probably wasn't clear.  I think we are both on the same page.  I was countering what Peteski was saying and my statement of "(despite pictures already posted by Jason and Jon)" meant I agree with their pictures and was reiterating that even though they beat me to the punch.

[nkalanaga]

"Doesn't work that way. Look at any "speed lettering" and it leans to the right, just like italics."

That's probably why it all leans that way - the designer is used to italic lettering.  The Rio Grande's wouldn't look as odd if the redid the horizontal bars to point backwards, following the airflow.  In the other hand, if they did that, the letters themselves would look very strange.  If I was doing that, I'd put the bars on the "d" and on the dot of the "i", and leave them off the "R" and "G".  But that's way off topic.

Since my graphics have both directions, and no province names under the logo, while CV's pictures have both sides the same, WITH provinces, I wonder if my guess above that the two styles represent different eras could be right?

[wcfn100]

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Jason

[nkalanaga]

OK, thank you Jason.  I've been hoping for a picture of the passenger side, of a prototype truck, but this is almost as good.  They used both graphics on the same side, so I guess I can prototypically letter it almost any way I like.  All in all, it seems that they weren't too worried about standardization.

It also looks like this one doesn't have the provincial names under the logo, like the model pictures show.  On the other hand, it's an older truck, which means the names may be a later addition.

Thank you, everybody.