It has been five years since Virgin Atlantic launched a new corporate identity. Despite the continued struggling global economy, the company invested a significant amount of money on a new logo and a new design for its fleet of airplanes that launched recently.
According to the press release, Steve Ridgway, Chief Executive of Virgin Atlantic says:
“We’re a dynamic and innovative British company and our new livery will really make us stand out from the crowd, both in the sky and on the ground at airports all over the world. Despite the most challenging economic conditions that we have encountered for some time, this is just one of many design projects that Virgin Atlantic has invested in. We have been working behind the scenes with British designers to re-ignite our brand and are developing new designs for the entire fleet of A330s due to come into service next year. Virgin Atlantic has a strong history of investing during downturns and we believe that our new livery and the forthcoming delivery of the Airbus A330-300 signals another period of growth for the airline.”
The new logo is shown below:
And here it is on an airplane:
The coolest part is the logo wordmark on the underside of the plane, as shown below:
The new logo is described as more modern while staying elegant and simple at the same time. Planes will be repainted to show off the new logo over the course of the next 12 months using a special paint described in the press release as follows:
“The new livery uses an entirely new paint system which is unique to Virgin Atlantic – a first on commercial aircraft. It has been specially developed to achieve a highly reflective depth of metallic colour. The painting process has been simplified, using fewer maskings and applications for a drastic reduction in materials used. Over 450 litres of paint was used and took over 3,000 – 3,500 man hours to paint. The new paint is more durable so aircraft will only require re-painting once a decade.”
The logo might not be a huge departure for the brand, but the video that’s floating around the Internet showing a time-lapse of the 3,000-3,500 hours that it took to repaint one plane is cool. You can check it out below.
Virgin Atlantic plane livery time-lapse movie from johnson banks on Vimeo.
What do you think of the new Virgin Atlantic logo and plane design? Love it? Hate it? Can barely tell the difference? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.
Source: Brand New
Susan Gunelius is the author of 10 marketing, social media, branding, copywriting, and technology books, and she is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company. She also owns Women on Business, an award-wining blog for business women. She is a featured columnist for Entrepreneur.com and Forbes.com, and her marketing-related articles have appeared on websites such as MSNBC.com, BusinessWeek.com, TodayShow.com, and more.
She has over 20 years of experience in the marketing field having spent the first decade of her career directing marketing programs for some of the largest companies in the world, including divisions of AT&T and HSBC. Today, her clients include large and small companies around the world and household brands like Citigroup, Cox Communications, Intuit, and more. Susan is frequently interviewed about marketing and branding by television, radio, print, and online media organizations, and she speaks about these topics at events around the world. You can connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+.
I recently noticed on Virgin Atlantic advertising, the use of this new, thin typeface. Not very attractive I thought, and I hoped they hadn’t changed their logo. They haven’t have they? Oh dear. Yes they have. Are they mad? The current version is only five years old, still looks great—and looks much stronger than this new, ill-conceived—in my opinion—bastardised typeface (it’s twaeked from a font called Gotham for nerdy designers out there, like me). And when you see the time-lapsed video of stripping and re-spraying all the old planes that must be several weeks work…? Well they must be mad? They current have a fleet of nearly 40 aircraft that will need doing. Look, I love and appreciate branding very much. And if a logo is nearing its sell-by date change it. But this is bloody daft. Virgin Atlantic, please save your dosh. Although I do like it on the fuselage…….