PatrickZ80 wrote:

scbriml wrote:

I assume you're talking about colour schemes? You do appreciate it's an entirely subjective matter? One man's ugly is another's classic.

But you've got to admit they're not modern. Still there is room for modern design in China. If you look at Xiamen Air for example, they're rather good looking. Not really special, but certainly not dull or old-fashioned. Besides, China Eastern and China Southern are in the process of updating their liveries. It was long overdue, but it's finally coming. Their new liveries are rather plain, mostly white, but it's a step in the right direction. That only leaves Air China with a very outdated livery.

Personally I'm not a fan of classic, but that's just my opinion. I'm happy the old bare metal livery on American Airlines is finally gone, it was one of the most outdated liveries on earth until it got replaced. The new livery is so much more modern, that's the reason I like it.

But not every modern livery is beautiful. Take Wizzair for example, the combination of hard pink and dark blue almost hurts the eyes. Their old livery was a bit more soft with curved lines that have been straightened in the new livery. Still I like Wizzair better than Air China. You just can't have cheatlines anymore, those days are long gone. Say what you want about Wizzair, but they are modern.

I heard Air China's livery is political in nature so cannot be changed easily?

Cerecl wrote:

lightmac wrote:

Are you suggesting that as many people enjoy the liveries of say "China Southern" as much as that of a well-designed, stylish livery?

I think the vast majority of the flying public couldn't give 2 hoots about the livery of an airliner. Of those who care, only a small portion of them (if such people exist at all) actually base (or even part of) their purchase decision on it.
I cannot agree with scbriml more. Beauty is subjective. I personally don't like MU's old design but their new livery is much improved in my opinion. As you can see from post #5, member MartijnNL has exactly the opposite perception. I don't think we need a better example to illustrate my point.
By the way, can you tell me what the big difference between this

and this is?


What about this


and this?

NH vs CZ in this example is rather obvious, then for the AF vs MU I think it's a problem with the font, especially the English one

The Chinese Airlines have Liveries that usually reflect their culture and are thus timeless. In the West? We want fresh designs because We get bored easily.

Here in China the branding of airlines is based purely on name and perhaps logo. General public doesn't cares about how pretty the outside looks when making a choice.

Highly subjective thread; perhaps we can start a AF has the worst livery in the world, or JL has the worst livery in world, etc. Someone made a comment earlier about a nasty service to match - shall we get started on how nasty the US3 are?

CA's livery is highly classic and resonates to the CAAC livery. It is our flag carrier, the carrier of our President and representative of our aviation culture since the jetliner age. I know a lot of people who like this classic look here.

eamondzhang wrote:

Seems like just a Chinese airline bashing thread tbh, not unlike those AvB or United/Delta/AA bashing ones.

If you can't agree that beauty is an entirely subjective thing like many others said right here, then there's nothing more that I can say. I can even say Delta or Alaska's livery is horrible if I want, and then what? Will they change the livery because of my one-man opinion?

Michael

I think the problem that whoever started this thread may not have realized is how easily many Chinese get offended when a foreigner criticizes anything about their country, unlike many in Western countries who are much more open to criticism about their country. It may have to do with the media in China only ever speaking positively of current affairs in the country and focusing on other country’s problems instead.

But back to the topic, what is the history of these liveries? Do they typically get updated, and if so how frequently?

scbriml wrote:

lightmac wrote:

Beauty is not subjective. If you show 100 faces to 100 people, they will largely agree on what is pretty and what is not.

Of course it's subjective. You cannot measure "beauty", it's entirely subjective.

What many westerners might consider a beautiful face might be considered ugly by someone living in the deepest Brazilian jungle. It's completely subjective.

Most people living in the deepest Brazilian jungle consider a blonde person with blue eyes beautiful as they have TVs, Internet and are terribly influenced by silly "western" standards of beauty despite being..."eastern"?? Frankly...

The perception of beauty is not entirely subjective, it can be highly influenced by many factors and trends, of course there are cultural differences - like colours can be interpreted differently from country to country- but we are talking about Chinese airlines and design, the interior of their planes is tuned with current aviation trends so it's rather intriguing that their livery looks kind of old fashioned compared to the rest of the world where for instance cheating lines ( I still love them) are definitely retro. China has a fantastic cultural heritage, thousands of years of art and it's a country that produces great contemporary design, I fail to understand why their planes still look the way they look.

chrisp390 wrote:

eamondzhang wrote:

Seems like just a Chinese airline bashing thread tbh, not unlike those AvB or United/Delta/AA bashing ones.

If you can't agree that beauty is an entirely subjective thing like many others said right here, then there's nothing more that I can say. I can even say Delta or Alaska's livery is horrible if I want, and then what? Will they change the livery because of my one-man opinion?

Michael

I think the problem that whoever started this thread may not have realized is how easily many Chinese get offended when a foreigner criticizes anything about their country, unlike many in Western countries who are much more open to criticism about their country. It may have to do with the media in China only ever speaking positively of current affairs in the country and focusing on other country’s problems instead.

But back to the topic, what is the history of these liveries? Do they typically get updated, and if so how frequently?

True. CA's livery went back to the CAAC and Aeroflot (Soviet Airlines) area - you'll find a lot of similarities in between. When CAAC split into a couple airlines, most of them have a similar style (apart from the color and logo of course). Only two airlines in China has ever updated their liveries so far - MU & MF. CZ's 787 livery is exclusive to 787 fleet rather than standard as many others suggested; thus I don't count that as an update.

Michael

lightmac wrote:

It strikes me how one of the world's biggest avition nations only has extremely ugly, old-fashioned airlines, design-wise: China.
Air China, China Eastern and China Southern have designs that look like they are straight out of a tacky 1970's children's book in North Korea. But also the second-tier airlines in China are very ugly, design-wise.
Why doesn't at least one airline manager in China start to recognize the value of a good design, that could set his airline apart?
On a side note: I think that SWISS, Air New Zealand and of course Star Flyer in Japan are extremely well designed airlines and that does make a difference!

Well, I think the Chinese airlines have indeed good liveries - Specially China Southern which seems to look the best (although I've many questions about the 787 new livery), with Air China (which livery was derived from the CAAC Airlines's livery) coming next. China Eastern however, I think the airline made a huge mistake in going with a livery which doesn't look like a livery at all, in my opinion (they could've refreshed their classic livery instead). The liveries of the HNA Group's airlines are fine, although I think they could've been more differentiated in colours (like Lufthansa Group's airlines). Xiamen Airlines's livery looks the most modern of all Chinese airlines (and it really looks nice to the eye, though).
So, I don't think all of the Chinese airlines do not have ugly or old-fashioned airline liveries at all.

blooc350 wrote:

Amsterdam wrote:

Beauty is not completely subjective

Sunsets, rainbows, tigers etc are found beautiful by whole mankind.

I dont think tigers are beautiful

Some other animals then
Rain forest birds
Whatever man
Scrap the tiger
Sunsets and rainbows etc every person finds beautiful

Besides
There are also people that like sex with animals or want to get shitted on etc
So you always have exceptions and freak stuff
Probably someone will also say, I dont think rainbows are beautiful
Whatever

(Btw how the hell dont you think tigers are beautiful, all humans I know find them beautiful, they are amazingly beautiful)

You write like a poet,you know
Some lines need work
Need I mention which?
But you have it baby, so share with us
The rainbow of your inspiration...

Amsterdam is quite a dame
Never been there, only in transit,
But I will fly forever KLM
The airline
Of those surprising Dutch!

(Btw who said that Hainan airlines livery and Yangtze River airlines livery is not beautiful, I think it is amazingly beautiful!)

PhoenixVIP wrote:

CA's livery is highly classic and resonates to the CAAC livery. It is our flag carrier, the carrier of our President and representative of our aviation culture since the jetliner age. I know a lot of people who like this classic look here.

Well, I'm not a fan of CA's livery (since of all of the Chinese airlines, I tend to prefer CZ's and MF's current liveries), but I think CA's livery is actually fine for what the airline is (better than some Western carriers out there, like UA).

In terms of livery, the only one that is really bad is China Eastern's new livery, trying too hard to make the Japan Airlines plain livery work.

There is some well developed research regarding physical beauty - at least as far as dimensions are concerned. Our brains are hard wired to prefer exact symmetry in the face and certain proportions in the body.

As for color schemes, that is likely much more a product of nurture rather than nature. It wasn’t that long ago, for example, that pink was a color associated with boys. That said, some colors do tend to elicit specific emotional responses.

lightmac wrote:

Beauty is not subjective. If you show 100 faces to 100 people, they will largely agree on what is pretty and what is not. The same is true for airlines.
I do think that "airline design" goes welll beyond "livery" and includes anything from lounge design, uniforms, on-board magazine, menue card etc....

Some hate broadway ballads, others hate country ballads. Beauty can be subjective.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

But you've got to admit they're not modern.

Just as it is your right to state what you've stated it is my right to say: "No, I don't have to admit this." I don't have to admit anything...regardless of someone's opinion.