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What makes a GREAT airline livery?

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What makes a GREAT airline livery?

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Old 24th Mar 2000, 02:25
  #41 (permalink)  
Rockwell
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EI-CNN was painted in Air Scandic black/yellow livery for last summer's
UK IT season. Now parked up at Abu Dhabi with the rest of the CKT L1011s.

For a look at the new Delta livery see: http://www.delta-air.com/inside/newlook/hires/index.jsp
Tail looks good, shame about the rest!

The jmc livery has to be seen in strong (e.g. Canary Is) sunshine to
appreciate the true colours. Admittedly on a grey dismal UK day it does
open up a discussion thread all its own! But the bottom line is it gets
the attention and you will remember it

L1011 CS-TEB of Air Zarco has been operating a few UK charters recently.
All white fuselage with single, very thin, light brownish line running
nose to tail along top of windows. The tail has three waving 'streamers'
of three shades of blue. Small, two shades blue, 'Air Zarco' titles
after front door.
 
Old 24th Mar 2000, 02:28
  #42 (permalink)  
Arkroyal
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T F you are right. grey and blue, or blue and grey.

United is just an upside-down British Midland, which is cool for Star Alliance partners
 
Old 24th Mar 2000, 02:54
  #43 (permalink)  
ID90
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Best livery..although I am far too young to have seen one in the flesh (honest guv), my vote goes to BOAC with those gold titles on dark blue stripes and fin.Very classy..Why did BA do away with the speedbird...
 
Old 24th Mar 2000, 03:00
  #44 (permalink)  
The Guvnor
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Strikemama - I already have loads of stylised lions head's zooming around on LET410s and CL44s, so I want something new, I think!

V - I agree with you about the Aer Lingus colour scheme. Caledonian leased them an L1011 which was fully painted in their colours and it was stunning!

Yes, we want to go for something apart from the boring all-over white that everyone and his brother seems to be using; but at the same time I want to avoid the aluminium finish as used by AA and EA - it is very labour intensive as it needs to be polished frequently, not to mention the additional corrosion risk!

Keep up the suggestions - and thanks to all so far!

------------------
Happiness is a warm L1011
 
Old 24th Mar 2000, 03:07
  #45 (permalink)  
mach 84
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in my oppinion the nicest painting of a 1011
is the royal jordanian. if you would have a similar one for your planes i definately would apply to fly for you.
________________________________________
happyness is to fly a well painted plane !!!

[This message has been edited by mach 84 (edited 23 March 2000).]
 
Old 24th Mar 2000, 03:21
  #46 (permalink)  
GJB
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I thought the old BA livery looked classy, but I think the new 'ethnic' tailplanes look hideous!
http://hometown.aol.com/MrDaiLo/SOHK.html

Some weird and wonderful pictures here with good links also.
 
Old 24th Mar 2000, 05:51
  #47 (permalink)  
Wino
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From a bottom line point of view, the smartest one has to be American airlines they save hundreds of pounds by leaving all that paint off and apparently it turned out to result in LESS corrosion.

However, my personal favorite would harken back to the glory days of aviation (world war II) and would say that any paint job that features a naked lady will get my vote...

Wino
 
Old 24th Mar 2000, 07:49
  #48 (permalink)  
pigboat
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The USAirways scheme looks good as did the CAI scheme before they got goosed and sold. Remember taxiing past a pink Court ten eleven once at YQX. My FO wanted to know if it was family owned and if there were any interior decorators in the family.
 
Old 24th Mar 2000, 09:55
  #49 (permalink)  
reverserdeployed
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American Airlines - has to be.

All that shiny metal looks great and is very timeless. AA's had that logo forever and it still looks great.

If you're going to go big on colour, then do a sweeping cheatline that wraps around the nose a la Eastern Airlines, Iraqi (who?), Lanchile etc.

The old Northwest livery when it was Northwest Orient, and the Continental logo made a nice use of white with gold, red and orange.
 
Old 24th Mar 2000, 17:49
  #50 (permalink)  
CHUUK
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Guv,

Please... don't you dare mess up a perfectly beatiful airplane like the L1011 with one of those corporate letterhead paint jobs of today! You know the type I mean... all white, big arial fonts, no stripes, etc...

What you need for those beauties are cheatlines... big ones! Old Cathay style, or even old Air Namibia style, God rest their souls <snif>. Aeroflot even looked good before they went with that "our engines and tail are on fire" scheme. Use a REAL font, not that Microsoft Word looking stuff

Cheers.

------------------
Preez mind dah pratform gahp.
 
Old 24th Mar 2000, 18:17
  #51 (permalink)  
strikemama
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ok, how about a zebra or giraffe head? saa's springbok is certainly timeless and very recognizable.

how about one of those "all-over" animal kinda things a la shamu at swa? (that was spouse of strikemama who suggested that, spouse is pregnant, remember)

s
 
Old 24th Mar 2000, 23:03
  #52 (permalink)  
flying scotsman
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Guv,
Do you remember those pens years ago that had beautiful women in swimming costumes........but when you turned (banked in this case) them the costume disappeared ?? Just a thought.

best of luck.......

------------------
Todays tip:.....No matter how good she looks, some man somewhere is sick of putting up with her s**t.
 
Old 25th Mar 2000, 00:47
  #53 (permalink)  
Mooney
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Angel




Thats what makes a good livery!
 
Old 25th Mar 2000, 00:57
  #54 (permalink)  
 
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Polished Aluminum sure looks nice, especially if it*s a plane still made from the stuff. Our little prop-driven steeds have so much plastic on them you couldn't do a "blank" livery at all. (Remember even AA painting their F.100 bellies light grey?)

If blank is no option, I agree with dark colours.

Some "flying" symbol is nice too, and we shouldn't blame LH too much for using the crane, they have been faithful to it almost without variaton for quite some time.

I agree with SAS new not being very distinctive, although the crew uniform and all "accessory" styling is cool scandinavian.

Flowing flags on the tail are nice, too, but maybe not really fitting for a cargo carrier.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder......

Made me notice how infrequently I get to see "new" liveries in the backwaters of central Europe, had to look up most on airliners.net.
Alpine Flyer is offline  
Old 25th Mar 2000, 01:35
  #55 (permalink)  
brianmay
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I say Guv

Could we not paint them white all over with gold and platinum bijou bags with currency symbols on, such as £'s and $'s and more! With a corporate logo of 'Eat your heart out'.

Or is that a little too direct?
 
Old 8th Sep 2000, 16:49
  #56 (permalink)  
WebPilot
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Like Alpine Flyer says, if there's vasty areas of composite or whatever, makes the nat al finish difficult - AA had big probs with their commuter BAe146 fleet (bought in from various mergers in painted schemes) which they wanted stripped to match the rest of their fleet in the face of technical advice from BAe bot to do it.

Nat metal does look good though.

I reckon the BOAC paint job for one of the most dignified schemes ever. A slightly modded version of that would have looked *really* good over a natural metal base.

Large areas of oranges/yellows are worth avoiding. Weathers badly and tends to look cheap - gives a bit of a 'third world' impression. Large areas of red also weather badly and look second hand fast. Blue is definately the colour to use for a superior impression. Cheatlines that give impression of speed with a 'dart' form are also good.

Enough teaching grannie to suck eggs, already.
But there's my ten penn'orth anyway.
 
Old 9th Sep 2000, 11:10
  #57 (permalink)  
Slasher
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Guv just stick to a simple design. The odd stripe here, a swishy curve there.

Just dont use anything resembling horible pukey designs like the "Sydney Zoo" and "Mandela Dreaming" monstrositys splattered all over some White Rat 747s. It puts passengers (at least sane ones) off. They look bloodey awful. It even makes OUR pax puke when I taxy past the ugly damn thing in HKG!
 
Old 10th Sep 2000, 00:04
  #58 (permalink)  
WeatherJinx
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Question

Guv

Have you chosen a name for the venture yet?

It might be an idea to finalise this first, then to come up with a set of values, and links (i.e. the Africa thing, or whatever). Once you have these things agreed, it will be much easier to know where you're going...as an earlier poster said, different colours and combinations evoke different responses and impressions.

(For what it's worth, I used to love the Court Line a/c as a kid (very bold for the time), and Lufthansa's logo also perfectly embodies their own image). My favourites? Currently the latest (non-ethnic) BA livery (but I did like the idea behind the ethnic tails), and KLM a/c look smart, and stand out - a testimony not only to good use of colour, but also to good typographic design - the unsung hero of commercial art.

The one thing that all the above logos and colour schemes have in common is good typography - for instance BA paid a fortune to have their own font designed.

The payoff for BA comes with the fact that no matter what a BA ad might say, you know it's theirs before you've even read it. They truly *own* their identity.

The most memorable logos start from the simplest ideas, which remain at the core of the brand and evolve only in the most subtle, gradual stages. For example, look at Kodak. Instantly recognisable the world over, and yet you'd think it had always been the same. A closer look at their packaging and advertising over the past fifty years or so, however, would reveal lots of tiny, staged evolutionary changes. Hope this helps.

WxJx

PS Trivia question!!

As a small child in the mid-seventies my interest in airline identities, and indeed aviation, was sparked by a Cadburys promotion whereby you ruthlessly ate/stole/bribed friends for chocolate wrappers, until you managed to accumulate a veritable mountain of the things, and sent off for (what was at the time) the most amazing tri-fold presentation pack, which was then studded with buttons representing all the major airlines' tail designs...Anyone else remember that?
 
Old 10th Sep 2000, 00:48
  #59 (permalink)  
The Guvnor
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Yes - I do remember that - in fact, I had it myself!! Curly Wurlies, if I'm not wrong...

The key to any corporate identity is to have it done professionally - and that costs a lot of money. We've been quoted over £1m for a complete package by the same people that did BA's new First, Concorde and Club World interiors; SAA, SAS, Saudia Arabian, Air Canada and LAN Chile corporate identities.

It has to carry over well to all aspects of a company's business - with BA, for example, it's not the tails: though that's what gets them noticed; it's their 'speedmarque'. You see that anywhere, and instantly it's BA. Same as the Adidas check mark.

Definitely not the sort of thing you can get done at your local Prontaprint - though strangely, loads of people try every year!

------------------
Happiness is a warm L1011
 
Old 10th Sep 2000, 01:07
  #60 (permalink)  
Petergozinya
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Pale silver. Reserve space anywhere on the airframe for your biggest contracts logos. Allow them to advertise on your planes. Kind of like the US postal service does.
 


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