Pan Am- Changed to the Blue Ball from the PAA scheme in the late 1950s,Had Pan American Titles then shortened to
Pan Am.1984 they changed to the Billboard livery and got rid of the blue stripe over the windows.
TWA-Had the twin stripe in the 1950s on their Connies.When jets came TWA came up with the twin globe logo which
lasted til 1975 they got rid of the twin globe and had Trans World titles,That livery had a 20 year run til 1995 when TWA
came up with their final livery with the Dark Blue underneath TWA sideways on the tail.
National Airlines-went from Airlines of the stars to the Red white and Blue N scheme lasted til 1967 when National
went to the Sun King
United-The friendly skies scheme to the Tulip livery in 1972 with Red Blue Orange stripes then changed to a gray paint
job til they merged with Continental and now using that logo instead of the tulip.
American Airlines-In the 1960s they went from the Lighning bolt to the red white and blue in 1968 which lasted til 2014
made it it the longest lasting paint livery ever 46 years-now they have their American Flag on the tail paint job.
Delta-Came out with the widget in the 1960s lasted til the 1990s then they came out with a livery called the beach towel
livery which was a color scheme on the tail then in the 2000s came out with their current scheme.
Eastern Airlines used the Golden Falcon logo for years til 1965 and that's when Eastern started to paint their planes
in a two tone Blue hockey stick scheme which lasted til they shut down in 1991.
Ive always wondered why airlines change their logos and the way they paint their planes.

Same reason other companies change their images.....rebranding.

Quoting doulasc (Thread starter): Ive always wondered why airlines change their logos and the way they paint their planes.

It's no different from virtually all other companies that change their branding and logos etc. every few years to keep up with the trends and avoid appearing old-fashioned.

Paint is the most overrated subject about airlines. I wished all airlines just bared their tubes.

In addition to brand refresh, normative tastes evolve over time. A lightning bolt today would look as antiquated as motels that advertise COLOR TV & FREE HBO. The UA tulip of the 70s and 80s would look like skittles planes today. It's funny how I was disappointed in DL for leaving the cheat line and widget in the early 90s. I look at those classic 70s & 80s pics and think that it would appear tired and dated in 2015.

Quoting doulasc (Thread starter): Delta-Came out with the widget in the 1960s lasted til the 1990s then they came out with a livery called the beach towel livery which was a color scheme on the tail then in the 2000s came out with their current scheme.

Delta had all three schemes at the same time in the 2000 to 2002 time period.

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With the American Airlines 1968-2014 logo that never got out of date to me.It never aged.I liked it better than
their new American flag tail livery.people said don't fix it if its not broken.

Quoting doulasc (Reply 6): With the American Airlines 1968-2014 logo that never got out of date to me.It never aged.I liked it better than their new American flag tail livery.people said don't fix it if its not broken.

It's amazing how small the AA pre-deregulation network was in 1968 when they introduced their most recent branding/livery. Only 3 international destinations (MEX/ACA/YYZ). I also preferred that livery to the new one.

I can see how the CO meatball would seem out of place today. But PAs, it was so iconic that I think the only thing they probably couldve done to improve it was to change the font of "Pan Am" with in the logo itself.

Also, the color gold seems to be going by the wayside in terms of today's trends. Silver is becoming more prominent.

Quoting Viscount724 (Reply 7): It's amazing how small the AA pre-deregulation network was in 1968 when they introduced their most recent branding/livery. Only 3 international destinations (MEX/ACA/YYZ). I also preferred that livery to the new one.

I'm not sure I would describe it small, but the scope of the route system certainly doesn't compare with today. You could say the same thing about United which was the largest airline in the free world after the Capital merger (taking that position from AA) and served only one international destination - Vancouver.

Funny thing - I absolutely hated the new AA livery when it came out. But up close, as in doing the pre-flight walk-around I was struck by the detail and shading on the vertical tail. I like it now (although my favorite is the orange lightning bolt Astrojet)

For the record the 1969 colors had detractors as well - one nick name was "The Circus Wagon"!

Quoting doulasc (Reply 6): With the American Airlines 1968-2014 logo that never got out of date to me.It never aged.I liked it better than their new American flag tail livery.people said don't fix it if its not broken.

Brands do get tired after a few years, some are timeless. Some get broken by events.
Malaysia's previous livery has been on the news every time there's anything about MH370 or MH017, lucky they were rebranding before that happened. American's was surely damaged by 9-11 as was United's.

United's battleship grey and the BA Landor colours look incredibly dated to my eyes now, they just scream last century. The current brillient white BA is another one I think is relatively timeless, their current "superbrand" status seems to suggest the public still likes it. You can have a refresh without changing the livery too much, see airfrance and easyJet.

The new American livery looked horrible on day one in pictures and now looks pretty amazing up close, not sure I would call it timeless though, it may date relatively quickly.

Speaking of timeless, I would say Emirates are a carrier who are sporting a rather timeless livery.

Quoting incitatus (Reply 3): Paint is the most overrated subject about airlines. I wished all airlines just bared their tubes.

Airbus has said that the metal alloy used in the A320 family must be painted. It wasn't meant to operate bare metal. The 787 and A350 are composite skin and must be painted.

I seem to recall reading on A.Net that a Boeing study shows that the advantages of a bare-metal aircraft (no spending money on paint and paint application and saving several hundred pounds of weight) are more than made up by the extra maintenance required of a bare metal aircraft.

And finally, as more exterior components become composite, bate-metal doesn't look as good. A DC-10 looks better than an MD-11 without paint, because the engine cowlings and the vertical stabilizer on the MD-11 are made of composite.

If you look at newer 738s in the AA bare metal livery, you notice that the vertical stabilizer, the engine cowlings, the cargo hatches, and a portion of the underside of the fuselage (aft of the wings) are composite and detract from the overall effect.

Even with a bare metal scheme, it still gets changed now and then. Some of AA's 707s had 3 different liveries (2 versions of the lightning bolt plus the scissor-eagle livery). US Air had 2 bare-metal liveries (one with a bare vertical stabilizer and one with a the stabilizer painted blue).

As others have said, logos, fonts, and product packaging do get changed from time to time, to make them more current.

Quoting doulasc (Thread starter):

A classic from classic to horrible was the late Capital Airlines logo switch which literally happened within a year or two of UA's takeover or merger. I can understand at the time the livery change was to be more hep cat (1950's) and given the airline's dubious safety record.

And, they believed they were going to get into the pure jet age. Never happened.

>

Quoting zippyjet (Reply 13): A classic from classic to horrible was the late Capital Airlines logo switch which literally happened within a year or two of UA's takeover or merger. I can understand at the time the livery change was to be more hep cat (1950's) and given the airline's dubious safety record.

A good example, the dated 50's Capital scheme, vs the "modern" early 60's (last design before UA merger that appeared on most DC-6B's and a few Viscounts).

Good reason to change;

Basel.com

Vintage Flyers Decals

Quoting rj968 (Reply 14):

Those are fantastic pics. Never saw these in our photo database. Maybe I'm 1950's at heart but the redo looks generic especially during the shaboom years and



OK for a cow juice logo, crappy for an airline.

Quoting doulasc (Thread starter): Ive always wondered why airlines change their logos and the way they paint their planes.

- Some liveries get old and need updating. Esp after new management shows up. The United shield/Friendship livery was looking dated in the 70s. Saul Bass (3 color tulip) was much more modern and a better design.

- Some liveries get changed by new management - to show they new guys in charge mean new things. United's Saul Bass (3 color tulip) was dated but saveble - but instead Steven Wolf went in total new direction - Battleship Grey.

- Some liveries are changed to rebrand. Tell customers this is a new and improved company - The 2004 blue tulip livery of United was brought about when the airline came out of bankruptcy, new management, and hopefully to turn around a aura of bad relations between management and employees (with customers caught in the crossfire).

- Some liveries don't change. When Continental merged with United the Continental senior managements stayed on, as did the Continental livery.

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[Edited 2015-11-12 17:40:59]

Quoting zippyjet (Reply 15): Quoting rj968 (Reply 14): Those are fantastic pics. Never saw these in our photo database.

The A.net database only includes photos of real aircraft, not artist's concepts and drawings. Capital never operated the Convair 880.

Quoting ckfred (Reply 12): Airbus has said that the metal alloy used in the A320 family must be painted. It wasn't meant to operate bare metal.

The aluminum alloy Airbus uses does not have alclad, like Boeing used. It must be painted to protect it. Fokker used the non alclad aluminum like AIrbus and it also need to be painted.
However, when American Airlines wanted their F100s to have bare metal, Fokker had to obtain the alclad aluminum needed, which took about one year so the F100s delivered to American did not need painting.
My spelling of alclad may be wrong.   

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Speaking of this subject, is there any airlines in the world that has not changed its livery and is still operating with the same livery till today, say that airlines existed for 15 plus years? I am not sure I can find one.

Quoting celestar (Reply 19): is there any airlines in the world that has not changed its livery and is still operating with the same livery till today, say that airlines existed for 15 plus years?

If I understand your question correctly, Lufthansa would be one.
747-400 D-ABVS in 1998:

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Same aircraft in 2014:

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Quoting celestar (Reply 19): say that airlines existed for 15 plus years?

Qantas used the exact same livery between June 1984 and July 2007, and the "new" livery is merely a small change to the logotype and the Kangaroo motif, as well as the removal of the thin gold stripe between the white and red sections of the paintjob:


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I'm not sure of any airline that has been in business for more than fifteen years and still uses their *first* livery, though.

Quoting XAM2175 (Reply 21): I'm not sure of any airline that has been in business for more than fifteen years and still uses their *first* livery, though.

JetBlue and Emirates?

Quoting rj968 (Reply 14):

Thank you anyway. I want to save those pics to my computer. The "diamond logo" doesn't embody a company with the name and image Capital. They could have modernized the bird tail logo and font to at least get it up to JFK era jetage modern. Even on their propeller birds it would have looked spiffy. Why did Capital change their livery knowing UA was taking them over? Seems like that fugly livery came out within a year of the company merger/takeover.

Quoting ckfred (Reply 12): you notice that the vertical stabilizer, the engine cowlings, the cargo hatches, and a portion of the underside of the fuselage (aft of the wings) are composite and detract from the overall effect.

The rear bottom half of the fuselage on AA's 737s isn't composite and have been painted on all aircraft. I recall reading that they were painted to reduce maintenance costs of buffing that particular section of the fuselage.

Quoting UA444 (Reply 22): Quoting XAM2175 (Reply 21): I'm not sure of any airline that has been in business for more than fifteen years and still uses their *first* livery, though. JetBlue and Emirates?

The Emirates name is much larger now than it was originally, and the font is different.

Original:

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Now:

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And no "Emirates" on the bottom of the fuselage originally.


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Photo © Akbarali Mastan

Many up-thread note that companies change logos over time. One logo I find timeless and that should remain is that of General Electric. There is just no way to improve it. RCA's electronics and appliance division had a "RCA" with a circle and electricity "bolt" or "flash" and an underscore. Another timeless one that was replaced with "Computer print" letters that looked dated a year after it was released. A moot point because the company is dead and gone.

Pan American's pre-1958 scheme was also timeless, and making it "PAN AM" with the ball cheapened it; the billboard letter scheme, was - in my opinion - even worse; it looked like something you'd see on a city bus.

Many improve over time; the ones above should be or should have been left alone.   

[Edited 2015-11-14 20:43:32]

Quoting doulasc (Thread starter): Delta-Came out with the widget in the 1960s lasted til the 1990s then they came out with a livery called the beach towel livery which was a color scheme on the tail then in the 2000s came out with their current scheme.

You forgot the interim livery which came out in '97............the next one, I don't remember hearing it referred to as the "beach towel" when I was working......"wavy gravy" seems to be what I heard. The current scheme came out right after they came out of bankruptcy, in 2007.


The standardized "widget" livery came out in '65, I believe and lasted until '97. The '97 livery, while it was an exciting change, at first, lost its luster in a hurry, it seems.

Quite frankly the CO/UA livery is pretty timeless to me. CO came out with it in the early 90s, and kept it up all the way till the end. United is keeping it going, but with that horrible font. I'm sure it will change in the next five to ten years, but it's still nice to see around.

There are MANY factors that will spark a livery change, and don't underestimate the signal being sent by new management. (and the CEO's wife liking mauve). Delta doing 3 programs within just a few years, each with management changes (I lived through 2 of them) Wolf wanting United Airlines to look like AF One, and doing Battleship because of his belief that it would make United more serious looking than the Saul Bass livery (mr Bass was inspired by the beautiful sundown horizon line across the grey clouds. (most obvious on the old carpeted bulkheads, and the rainbow coach seats) The cheat lines were actually Blue, orange and magenta, offset by grey

ALL brands update their design, from a bottle of Gatorade to an airline. The big move is when the LOGO (SYMBOL) is changed or created. Like, Cathay creating the Brushwing logo when the previous Cathay had no logo. (frankly United needed one badly, so mr Bass developed the "flying U" (or tulip)

There are updates to logos, where the subject matter of the logo is kept but the design of it changes: VARIG has a compass that looked like it was created in the 1950's, Landor kept the compass idea, but created a totally new one that reflected something far more Brazilian. It was both a "sun" and a "compass" (a compass was a nod to Portuguese leadership over the seas and navigation hundreds of years ago) and good use of Blue and Yellow without looking like a "futebol" 747! As for the ...Pan Am globe (IMHO was the best logo ever, out of any logo on earth- ever). it still stirs the heart today. Pan Am fashion is vogue because of that sky blue GLOBE!

Great brand stewardship comes from truly understanding your brand and "branding" (the signals of your brand). Arguably the SQ Crain is a dated design done by Walter Landor in the 1970's. They know their brand is delivering consistency, a consistent level of unrivaled excellence. Therefore they don't change the symbol, ever. They can update the colors, the livery, but NOT the sacred symbol. Same with Thai. They have changed the "stripes" a lot to reflect a new, fresh brand promise, but, they dare not touch the symbol. (United feels uncomfortable because it isn't clear)

I assume, (hope) QANTAS never fundamentally changes the Kangaroo, but I can see them update how it is depicted one day.

The look of design all around us changes ALL THE TIME the same way clothing and how clothing marks eras. The impact of digital on design was unprecedented. A whole new world opened up since the 1990's and it drove major changes to the fundamentals of branding, from names to design. (Google, Apple)

The CO livery is the PRIMO example of that. That digitally created globe was driven by new technology of the day, the new look that the digital world introduced. It basically made everything pre-1990 look dated. I think the current United look (which has a very bad symbol) is dated because it looks like early digital looking design. (it's fine for now because until UA figures out who they are and fixes the promise they make to their fliers, they shouldn't change)

As generations turn, as young adults today have grown up with an entirely different sense of aesthetics, so has the need to update. From a can of Coke to the tail of a 787.

Go to Landor.com and read the cases on their most recent case histories of the airline work they have done.

Quoting VC10er (Reply 29): Go to Landor.com and read the cases on their most recent case histories of the airline work they have done.

oh my goodness. the home page was like an acid trip and gave me an instant headache. way too over the top with trying to be avante gard with flashy colors and text.

im no design expert, but subtle, yet elegant changes are my preferred route to update a logo and corresponding. not create something with the intent of "revolutionizing" to the point of looking plain awful or chaotically slapped together.

Interesting thread. CO's meatball? UA's tulip? Can anyone list all the liveries nicknames?

Quoting ro1960 (Reply 31):

Delta Widget, AA Eagle, AA new logo is called the Flight Symbol, JL Crane,

I may add to the list in OP Air Canada which changed its livery to the colour you see today & was dominant in red colour until a little later after its privatisation when its market research saw the corporate livery at the time dominant with their classic red colour perceived by its customers to still reflect the old mentality of a government owned static entity.

IMO it is a way of delivering a corporate message to their customers: that they have internally changed & that they now have an internal new mind set, that they are dynamic & up to speed with all the social & corporate changes taking place at their time, to tell their customers they are still vibrant & although they may be old but still able to deliver a product synonymous with that current age.

Quoting WesternDC6B (Reply 26):

The Motorola M is also timeless. I too prefer the RCA classic pre 1968 logo and especially with Nipper the doggy. They actually brought the doggy back for a bit in the 80's. Back to the topic at hand. DL widget livery 1965? I remember it as far back as 1963 or 1964. For a bit, the first DC 8's and 880's had a crossover logo when they rolled out in the late 50's very early 60's. The piston/props retained the old school Delta with the wings atop the D. Please correct me if I'm wrong.




1964


And with Eastern I guess the Golden Falcon livery could have been seen as dated in the early mid 60's. I like the hockey stick but have always felt having the stylized falcon symbol on the tail would have added to the appeal of the hockey stick. Of course the 757 and now 737 (revived Eastern)

Quoting irishayes (Reply 30):

Are you talking about the Landor site itself, or the work for Etihad?

If you are someone who prefers subtile, that is totally valid, but it may not be right for every case. Etihad wanted bold, gold and "avant garde" (wow, ancient expression). Garuda is on there, which IMHO is a more subtile but bolder statement with much retained from the previous Garuda (also ala: Landor)

I worked at Landor for 23 years, it's an enormous design agency with an enormous client roster, in many, many categories, from airlines to bacon. Brand strategy is what drives the solution. It also can claim to have invented the industry as a pioneer among just a few others, most of whom didn't survive past the passing of their namesakes.

It is a new website since I left, I didn't look to see if there was an historical section where some 40 airlines, spanning 40 years could be found. But new management is almost wholesale new and they have little regard for the agencies past. They weren't there for it and are transfixed on the present.

Someone like me has a very romantic love for Landor's history. Giants from the past who's today's people sit upon their shoulders. But, alas, I agree to a certain extent, clients care very little about what the agency did for Alitalia in 1966!!!

I was once told, many years ago, by a very senior airline executive, who still lives so I won't use his name, that when things were going poorly and you wanted to distract people from such matters, change the livery. Obviously in the case of mergers, aircraft get repainted, but his point was that nothing distracts attention away from what matters onto something that really is quite superficial as a change in livery.

I suppose it is the old "watch the puppet" trick in many cases.

Quoting zippyjet (Reply 34): Back to the topic at hand. DL widget livery 1965? I remember it as far back as 1963 or 1964. For a bit, the first DC 8's and 880's had a crossover logo when they rolled out in the late 50's very early 60's. The piston/props retained the old school Delta with the wings atop the D. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

The first DL aircraft with what would become the "Standard Widget" was Delta's first DC-8-51, N807E, ship 807 delivered in April 1962. Note the almost all white including the tops of the wings.

Delta's first DC-8-51 N807E, Apr 1962 (Delta photo)

The first 6 (DC-8 10 series, 11/12) were delivered in this rather odd scheme with a font not used on anything else. All were later converted to DC-8-51 standard and repainted in the widget scheme.

This is a good example of what the thread is about - Why do airlines change paint schemes.

DL DC-8 11/12 (from ebay, no photo credit)

All the piston aircraft remained their "Flying D" scheme until retirement well into the Widget era.

RJ

[Edited 2015-11-17 20:45:55]

Quoting VC10er (Reply 29): Arguably the SQ Crain is a dated design done by Walter Landor in the 1970's. They know their brand is delivering consistency, a consistent level of unrivaled excellence. Therefore they don't change the symbol, ever.

SQ would be better-off explaining their logo rather then amending it. Not many people from abroad realise that the crane is inspired by the handle of a Keris, a dagger with as important a significance in Malay folklore as the katana is in Japanese. It isn't a generic crane/golden bird as many even here on this forum think. Krisflyer, Silverkris Lounge or Krisworld anyone? How is it people just don't make the connection?!



[Edited 2015-11-18 05:46:44]