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Sunday, Jul 12, 2009
Resistance is futile. The Generic Meaningless Swoosh Thing will conquer all.
Jul 18, 2005 | There was a time, not all that long ago, when the logo of Pan American World Airways stood as one of the most widely recognized commercial trademarks in the world. There was nothing particularly attractive about the symbol -- a fissured, blue and white globe reminiscent of a basketball -- but it worked. Only the frilly script of Coca-Cola was better known across the planet.
The globe first appeared in the 1950s and endured for almost half a century, right until Pam Am's final breath in December 1991. The uniforms of Pan Am's aircraft certainly changed over the years -- in the 1980s, for example, the vintage nose-to-tail fuselage stripe was swapped for a look that presaged the "billboard" concept now commonly employed by many carriers -- but through it all, the blue ball remained on the tail. Had Pan Am survived, one wonders, would the globe have made it too? Looking around at the evolution -- perhaps "devolution" is the better word -- of air carrier logos, it's hard to tell.
Since the dawn of civil aviation, airlines have been devising and revising what they believe to be meaningful identities. As pointed out by author Keith Lovegrove in his superb volume "Airline: Identity, Design, and Culture," the logo represents only a small fragment of the overall branding process, which takes place on a score of fronts, from cabin interiors to crew attire to the color of maintenance vehicles. But it's the logo that encapsulates identity in a single aesthetic mark.
Often, if predictably, these insignia incorporate national symbols or cultural associations. The shamrock of Aer Lingus; the Qantas kangaroo; the green cedar of MEA (Lebanon); the Pharaonic bust of EgyptAir -- there are literally hundreds to choose from. Subtler adaptations include Malaysia Airlines' indigenous kite design, and the calligraphic brush stroke of Hong Kong's airline, Cathay Pacific.
Others are more arbitrary. What is Air-India attempting to communicate through use of the centaur, the man-horse of Greek mythology? Lufthansa can trace its logo to 1919, when one of the airline's predecessors, an outfit called Deutsche Luft Reederie, came up with a flying-crane motif for its planes. Is there anything endemically German about cranes?
Does there need to be? After all, commercial iconography is full of simple, wholly invented emblems. The birdlike colophon worn by Imperial Airways and BOAC (later British Airways) comes to mind, or the eagled AA of American Airlines, but they needn't be overtly suggestive or hearken to any flight-related theme. The four-petaled "U" of United is but an abstraction of the airline's name. Generic you could say, but generic in a good way, able to cultivate recognition the world over.
Even the name alone can do the trick. There's nothing terribly recondite about the typefaces worn by Virgin Atlantic (inherited from Sir Richard's earlier enterprises) or SAS (Scandinavian Airlines System), yet they're expressive enough to have become iconic logos all their own, instantly distinguishable to millions of people (Coca-Cola here too).
The famous Pan Am globe was an obvious-enough symbol, but any one of them, even the ugly or seemingly senseless ones, has (or had) the capacity to become a timeless fingerprint.
Though hardly an aesthetic masterpiece, Pan Am's logo was a classic. And it wasn't the only one. I'll give you three more that were, or could have been, similarly successful (and we'll be borrowing a bit from a pair of previous columns, in which we critiqued and graded the best and worst of airliner paint jobs).
First is the old circular logo of Japan Airlines. For decades every JAL aircraft featured this stylized depiction of the crane, lifting its wings into the circular suggestion of a rising sun. Everything about it worked: It was proud, ageless, unmistakable. As a bonus it also was -- unlike the stodgy Pan Am globe -- stunningly attractive.
Next have a look at the trademark recently retired by Northwest Airlines. Unveiled in 1989, this was the brainchild of Landor Associates, one of the industry's most powerful identity overhaulers. The mark is genius: It's an N, it's a W, it's a compass pointing toward the northwest. It was all of those things at once, and boldly handsome to boot.
And lastly is the three-cornered, so-called widget of Delta Air Lines. Clunky perhaps, but modest and unequivocal. It says one thing and says it without a hint of fuss or pretension: Delta.
