British Airways Failure

British Airways as a brand seems to have had one major drama after another as it has stepped into the millenium. In 1997, BA suffered severly by introducing 'ethnic liveries' displaying worldly images on aircraft tailfins. Promoting it's global links and routes seemed a great idea at the time, however they literally lowered the Union Jack and came across as unpatriotic - especially when announcing cost-saving redundancies shortly afterwards.

Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher showed her displeasure at the designs by covering one of the new tailfins on a model 747 with a handkerchief at a launch event. This was a major blow for BA popularity which Virgin Atlantic took advantage of. On the back of this BA controversy, Branson applied the flag to the front end and later the wings of its aircraft, leading up to their relaunch in 1999.

BA brought back the Union Jack tailfin (BBC News Article) along with a rebrand including a modern swoosh logo, tweaked typeface and a new color palette including silver, rebranded by FutureBrand. who were made responsible for setting the new standards of excellence. Having returned the airline to it's 'Britishness' in 2001, negative PR haunted BA including further cabin crew strikes along with the recent merger with Iberia in 2010. One failure after another, until now ...

(find out in the next blog)

No Need to Sugar Coat

There is no need to sugar coat anything, especially design. Long, clever sounding words that is just not needed. This happened to me in my first job after graduating - a snooty PR individual attempted to loose contact with our audience by taking up un-needed, extravagant amplifications in our communications!

Not quite sure how to describe the comical design and appearance of projects and brand such as these but I love it. Ben & Jerrys, Innocent Smoothies and the famous Welsh brand (formely known as Mr Creemy) Subzero Ice cream all choose a specific approach to attract and engage with their audience. Innocent Smoothies is a prime example that doesn't offer a product range but a 'family' of smoothies, juice drinks and other creative approaches to squeezing in your 5-a-day. Their new 'Superhero Smoothie' TV ad follows a DIY approach to creative TV adverts with a simple smoothie bottle on a stick. Very Blue Peter but still quite successful.

Ben & Jerrys have a strong presence in the UK and provide as much fun, games, flavour and goodness as it possibly through colourful TV adverts which drive traffic to their website, successfully making you want to go out and get your head into a tub of chunky monkey.
Mr Creemy has been around for years but due to a dispute over its trademark, it opted for a rebrand and what turned out to be a whole new direction.

Subzero was the result to compete as a contender against big names on the supermarket isle. The 'ultra cool', contemporary and sophisticated new look with quirky website was obviously all aimed at attracting a younger, more affluent audience and I hope it has.

My conclusion for this approach to design and advertising ... very art-and-craft-esque! Enough of this pretentious hogwash and baloney - keep it simple!

Type & Font

With an unproductive weekend, spent not doing more of a market research assignment, I took interest in some recent typography and branding projects.

Up in Brum there is Created In Birmingham's ‘Not My Type’ Exhibition showing the work of 35 local artists who created illustrations from A-Z, 1-10 & punctuations. Visit their website or stop in if you are in the Bull Ring Shopping Centre before June 1st - it's impressive.

Not sure if you’ve noticed the new Waterstones image? Yes the beloved seller of books has re-branded. Bringing the logo up to date by loosing capital letters & trying to look a little bit more like amazon. They could have a lot of fun with it – and they have, but still I prefer the hogwartian-style older image that a book shop should represent. The more I look - it reminds me of saggy body parts!

Moving on to another typography project from advertising agency Saatchi, is the ‘Communication of Joy with Durex’. An impressive bit of work well worth the look (and a giggle!) Another re-brand was that of the famous swanky London hotel Claridge's. This was a heavy piece of work - not only was it a logo but a working image present on basically everything: 'branded teapots and egg cups through to slippers and dressing gowns'.