True Colors: Why Southwest’s New Look is Full of Heart

There is plenty to commiserate about the current state of affairs with commercial airline travel and few carriers have been able to cut through the noise of dissent and realistically maintain their profit margins without compromising quality. Virgin Airlines has managed to make a considerable impact on travelers with its cheeky advertising and sexy cabin lighting schemes.

But for far longer than Virgin, it’s Southwest Airlines which has consistently earned high marks for best in class service at a competitive price.

When global design firm Lippincott was called on to update the brand assets and identity system, it quite literally, cut to the heart of the matter.

“From our first design criteria presentation we made a very clear statement to our core team and then to senior management, that the issue for Southwest was one of uncovering the true Southwest, not about creating a new Southwest.”

Lippincott’s visual identity system is evident throughout Southwest’s various collaterals, in-flight utility items, and digital experience. “A vibrant experience is what customer’s expect from Southwest,” says Rodney Abbot, senior partner of design.

That’s Rodney Abbot, senior partner of design at Lippincott, who spoke with us about how he and his team met the design challenge. “We stated from day one that the symbol for Southwest was the heart.”

Until then, Southwest had utilized two separate logos: the “Winged Heart” and the “Take-Off” logo (a plane in flight over the name, ‘Southwest.’) The Lippincott drilled down deep into Southwest’s core competencies to bring further weight to their choice of a heart logo. And while adding a heart to much of anything might seem hackneyed, Abbot more than begs to differ.

“A core ingredient of that character is a ‘fun LUV-ing attitude’, something that customers have come to expect from Southwest,” explains Abbot. “The challenge as the brand matures is showing customers and potential customers that the business is also a really buttoned-up operation. That fact hasn’t always cut through, so while the new identity maintains a playful, humorous tone, it does so in a very deliberate and thoughtful way.”

The client gave Lippincott only one caveat: that the balance of colors and stripes on the tail remain the same. The new heart logo, however, found its way on the plane’s belly, offering a refreshing new way to identify a Southwest plane as it passes overhead.

Lippincott’s strategy included giving Southwest a fresh coat of paint, in the same signature color palette but even more saturated and richer. From the planes to the check-in gates to the cocktail napkins, color plays a key role in the brand’s new bold visual identity.

“After all, a vibrant experience is what customers expect from Southwest. So we deepened the blue and saturated the red and yellow. We also added silver stripes to separate the colors, accentuating the heightened contrast between them, and introducing a more refined note to the identity system.”

To the casual consumer, one might ask if a major rebrand translates into higher airfares? After all, who’s going to cover the cost of all those buckets of paint?

Airport check-in counters were also treated with the color system, and the website was updated and simplified. “Without a heart, it’s just a machine.”

“The rollout of the identity is being integrated into the existing timelines for repainting planes and upgrading airports,” assures Abbot. “That said, any brand needs to always ask the question: are we true to who we are, and are we connecting with people in a way that’s relevant and fresh?

We second that wholeheartedly (sorry, that pun just snuck in), simply because any brand worth its salt should always be forecasting the cost of future upgrades to their brand experience.

We’re happy to see that Southwest is flying its true colors and can think of quite a few more carriers who could use the same help. Hello, US Airways?

Leave a Reply

Click here to cancel reply.

You must be logged in to post a comment.