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H. Pier Clifford, the driving force behind Norfolk Southern Corp.’s logo and “Thoroughbred” branding, died March 20 in Paoli, Pa. He was 80.

Clifford, who retired from NS in 1987, was the railroad’s advertising manager in 1982 when Southern Railway and Norfolk and Western Railway merged and sought a new logo and brand image for the combined organization. He worked with various company officers and advisors to review about 200 logo prototypes before settling on a bold, slanted “NS” followed by five speedlines.

But Clifford believed something was missing. In a recent interview, he recalled that an animal was considered to give the logo an “instant visual.”

“After a certain gestation period, The Thoroughbred was born, sired, perhaps, by the eagle of the Postal Service, which noble bird we all admired,” Clifford said in the interview.
 
The image of a thoroughbred racehorse was used in a national print advertisement titled “From the Championship Heritage of Two Great Railways Comes Norfolk Southern Corporation:  The Thoroughbred.”
 
During the past 28 years, the Thoroughbred “has become synonymous with speed, reliability and worthy bloodlines,” NS officials said in an employee announcement on Clifford’s passing.

“Today, it remains an integral component of the corporation's symbology and communications,” they said. “In short, much of what the modern NS ‘looks like’ can be traced to Clifford’s work.”