Opinion BY Armin

Flight of the Condor

As the largest domestic and international carrier in Argentina, Aerolíneas Argentinas has been transporting passengers to, from and within this beautiful land since the early 1950s. With a new mission “To connect Argentineans and contribute towards the integration and economic and social development of our country, promoting the national territory as a tourist, cultural and business destination,” Aerolíneas Argentinas is introducing a new identity designed by Futurebrand.

The new brand image preserves some of the historical elements that position the company amongst world class airlines: the condor symbol of the airline has been redrawn, styling its strokes and providing greater purity to its shape. The distinctive blue colour of the company has been replaced by a light blue, which is closer to that of the national flag, enhancing its presence in its application on the aircrafts of the new fleet. The old typography has been replaced by a more modern, lightweight and agile one, which preserves the traditional italic writing, a symbol of the progress and optimism that represents this new phase.
— Press Release

Logo introduction video.

The condor is a bird typical of our national territory. However, the Aerolíneas condor is an indisputable part of the brand. It is not a naturalistic representation but a proper and personal symbol, designed with a particular style and instantly recognizable. Born in the middle of last century, this symbol is rescued today more than ever, more stylized and refined in a subtle and respectful manner.
— Brand Presentation PDF

This change is like going from Version 4.0 to Version 5.0 in the airline’s identity. It’s not a revolution and even as an evolution it isn’t too drastic. At the end of the day it’s still a condor above an italic wordmark. A little more modern, yes, but nothing to write such exuberant words about. The condor is a strong and dynamic evolution, especially by removing what looked like a dog collar around its neck. The new wordmark is typeset in Neo Sans, in title case instead of all uppercase, giving us a nice break from an all lowercase wordmark. There is one detail in the wordmark worth appreciating, and that’s the “i” lining up with the “n” above it, as well as both of the terminal “as.”

Overall, a successful evolution, but definitely nothing too exciting.

Other corporate instances that received the Neo Sans Italic treatment.

Thanks to Chris McFarland for first tip.

Everett’s comment is:

While definitely conservative in style, the rebrand is nicely designed and well crafted. The ligature st in Austral and the straightened tail of the g in Aerohandling are very nice touches. With such a conservative wordmark and logo, I would have liked to see much more progressive applications.

It bothers me a little bit that a company like Futurebrand would still refer to italicized type as “a symbol of the progress and optimism.” The actual use of italics does not bother me at all, but the design-speak never fails to turn my stomach.

On Jun.25.2010 at 06:06 AM

qwertyale’s comment is:

so this is an airline brand… (Aerolinea)
… and country name could be… boring gray
… ok enter please next client.

On Jun.25.2010 at 06:25 AM

Sigmund’s comment is:

i think it’s great, it definetly works.

On Jun.25.2010 at 06:33 AM

Paul’s comment is:

Love the condor mark. Very retro and authentic. Wordmark is meh. I wouldn’t even call it a wordmark. Just looks like typed out italic Neo Sans to me. Original was a better fit with the logo.

On Jun.25.2010 at 07:45 AM

ScottyM’s comment is:

I get a strange feeling I’ve seen this before …?

On Jun.25.2010 at 07:53 AM

juan manuel’s comment is:

As an Argentinian I can say that I don’t like it. First of all the brand is well done, good quality. The condor has a good shape, however, I think the older one, more aggressive, is more strong. The old shape is not so good, but the new one, not improve the icon. The type I think it too actual, so in a few years, it will be seen as old fashion, that’s why a prefer the older one, more noble, that eve today is an actual type. The great decision of all was to change the blue color for the light one, more close to our flag.

On Jun.25.2010 at 08:15 AM

rek’s comment is:

It’s very conservative, and for a bird the logo has absolutely no energy to it. Compare it to, say, Malaysia Airlines, the garuda bird streaks across the space.

And isn’t the demonym Argentine? Not Argentinian or Argentinean.

On Jun.25.2010 at 08:20 AM

Paul’s comment is:

One nice thing about the old one was the way the two initial As lined up relative to their slant. It would have been nice to have seen that carried over into the new one. To me, the curves on the new condor look sloppy; would have preferred to see the old one retained (but removing that weird “Adam’s apple” in there)

On Jun.25.2010 at 08:33 AM

Q. Pheevr’s comment is:

This is a major improvement; the previous wordmark wasn’t even properly kerned. My only problem with the new version is that the grey of “Argentinas” does not contrast very well with the blue background. It’s disturbingly hard to read on the side of the plane in the picture. On the whole, though, I think the new look is very elegant.

On Jun.25.2010 at 08:34 AM

Valeria’s comment is:

Soy argentina, y realmente debo decirles que este rediseño no me gusta para nada.
Lamentablemente perdió mucha fuerza y buen gusto. El diseño de los aviones para estar en el 2010, parece un diseño de los 90.
Tipográficamente no tienen nada de fuerza y el cóndor es la peor síntesis que se pudo haber hecho.
Debo decirles que la primera vez que vi este trabajo, parecía un trabajo facultativo y no de un estudio tan grande como futurebrand.

On Jun.25.2010 at 08:40 AM

Ink Asylum’s comment is:

The condor could have been taken a bit further and made more striking. The font isn’t terribly exciting, either.

On Jun.25.2010 at 09:25 AM

Gunter Soydanbay’s comment is:

I clicked the link and read the press release to learn more about the brand strategy from which this new identity stemmed. Surprisingly,Futurebrand did not mention about the brand personality or promise of this renewed brand. I found it a little bit odd.

On Jun.25.2010 at 09:29 AM

Santiago’s comment is:

As an argentinean as well, I’m not too convinced about this whole new rebranding. There seem to be some serious goals set at the time of rebranding the whole identity, but the excecutions seems a bit poor to me. All of these press images seem to look ok, but the overall identity system seems to fall apart as a whole. The type doesn’t look bad but it seems to have lost part of it’s character. When you go to aerolinas.com and see the logos, very small and one next to the other, they seem to lack a proper identity. At the same time, when I try to imagine possible common applications for an airline, the brand starts to fall apart. I can’t imagine neither this typographic approach nor the colour palette when it comes to timetables in the usually small screens we have in local airports next to other airlines. Neither I can imagine it placed in the hangars next to other airlines. The old identity wasn’t a masterpiece, but had by far a better performance. The other thing that annoys me a little is the condor. The new one looks like some kind of quick live trace in illustrator. The livery in the airplanes are not bad, but I’m afraid they might get outdated too soon for such an investment. As a conclusion, I must say I don’t like it, Aerolineas is supposed to be some kind of national emblem with a significantly rich history that represents us abroad, and the final brand is closer to a low cost airline.

On Jun.25.2010 at 09:41 AM

Kelli’s comment is:

I see the new look as an improvement upon the old logo. The lighter colors and text make the brand more approachable than the previous darker, bold lettering. The new condor appears lighter and swifter than the previous one as well. However, it looks less like a condor than the previous one, perhaps if they elongated the neck more? The true test of the brand and the brand experience will come when they actually redo the planes and people are able to interact with them. But as with all redesigns a majority of it boils down to personal opinion. I noticed that most of the Argentinians who commented disliked the re branding while others enjoyed it. Cultural difference? Maybe.

*side note: Did anyone notice the BP logo on the side of the plane? Sad face.lol*

On Jun.25.2010 at 10:24 AM

Q. Pheevr’s comment is:

Kelli: I don’t think that’s a BP logo; it seems to be something to do with Argentina’s bicentennial. (It shows up at a more readable size in the top right corner of Aerolíneas Argentinas’ home page.)

On Jun.25.2010 at 10:35 AM

M’s comment is:

So let me get this straight: the majority are nick-picking things such as kerning, colour choice and logo curvature? Weren’t these criticisms more appropriate for the Bronx River Alliance?

This is clean, simplistic yet finely crafted. I’m despairing at what people are believing to be good and bad design.

On Jun.25.2010 at 11:28 AM

Nick’s comment is:

Reminds me of BOAC in a nice way.

On Jun.25.2010 at 11:44 AM

juan manuel’s comment is:

Kelli, the logo you saw is the Argentina’s bicentennial brand. And of course, the cultural difference has something to do here, but more likely I think is the attached we as argentinians have with our stuff, symbols and national brands.

On Jun.25.2010 at 12:11 PM

GUS the Gamer’s comment is:

lol the rendered plane on the video is horrible, like a scene from the SIMS

On Jun.25.2010 at 12:31 PM

obse.’s comment is:

As an Argentinian myself, I hate to admit I like it. Don’t agree with Valeria and Santiago at all.

Not sure about the semi-roundness of NoeSans, but it really looks like every decision has its reason and agree that typographic details (like the aligning n and i or the st ligature in ‘Austral’) are awesome.

The only thing to notice is it reminds me a little bit of another national company that has recently added airplanes to their fleet and uses our flag colors and a lot of white: Buquebus.

About the condor’s “collar”, if you ever see an andean condor you’d notice it’s “ruff of white feathers surrounding the base of the neck” are a very disctinctive characteristic that separates it from other vultures, so I think they should have kept it. I don’t think it looked that bad though.

In all, I must say I like it and it works really well with the whole argentinian spirit that’s been surrounding us this year matching all that Bicentenary feeling found in this brand and this brand.

On Jun.25.2010 at 12:36 PM

Andrea’s comment is:

It would be really awesome if the commentators who can speak other languages would translate the comments from people who do not comment in English. Not just for this post, but any post.

Pleeeeaaase??

On Jun.25.2010 at 01:04 PM

Tim Gengler’s comment is:

I really like this work. It borders on being a bit too soft and simple, reminding me almost of the Dove soap brand. I can understand all of the choices and think that it works quite well, though, and this is certainly an attractive upgrade from their previous logo.

Nicely done.

While I’m tempted to comment that this is nothing new, building a certain degree of safety and comfort into an airline brand makes a great deal of sense. There are times where you don’t want “exciting.”

On Jun.25.2010 at 03:16 PM

dreamfish’s comment is:

BOAC Speedbird logo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedbird

On Jun.25.2010 at 06:15 PM

brownstone’s comment is:

@rek

Did you mean Garuda Indonesia (airlines) instead of Malaysia? Now, Malaysia Airlines… that’s one in need of a re-design!

Overall I like the look. Not keen on the wordmark on its own, but put into practice it looks good.

On Jun.25.2010 at 06:25 PM

Will Burnett’s comment is:

The condor borders on generic, but the logotype is pretty nice - on another note, anything is better than Arial.

On Jun.25.2010 at 07:16 PM

Fábio Barbosa’s comment is:

Yeah - Are you telling me that they actually used to have Arial Black for the logo?

And about Neo Sans, it seems it’s becoming trendy nowadays. In Portugal, the Azorean airline SATA also uses Neo Sans as their corporate typeface since their last rebranding. Portugal Telecom also seems to have jumped on that wagon.

Anyway, the overal result is an improvement. Nothing too spectacular. But ditching Arial is by itself a motive to celebrate.

On Jun.25.2010 at 08:23 PM

Reinko’s comment is:

Not too excited about this. Particularly dislike the word mark in the two line lockup. Horizontally on the plane it feels much nicer.

On Jun.26.2010 at 04:27 AM

martin bütow’s comment is:

i liked the old bird a lot better, one could easily identify it as a condor - the new one looks like the mandatory bird every airline has in their logo. typo is nice, but i cant really come to terms with the three lines under “aerohandling”.

On Jun.26.2010 at 05:02 AM

Julio Ferro’s comment is:

Conservative, yes. Aerolineas is a conservative company specially taking into account that it was brought back to the goverment.

I think there were some risky proposals from FB but the management pointed to respect the symbol. In my opinion, a vulture is a negative icon. The reshape of this bird neutralizes a bit this perception, but it’s not enough. The other thing is that the condor is the symbol for Avianca and Lloyd Aereo Boliviano (watch this! http://bit.ly/cNwppi) as well.

They’ve missed the oportunity to give this brand a new perspective, since the awful management when it was owned by Marsans Group.

I still remember a very nice symbol done by Cato Purnell for Aerolineas’s 50th anniversary. It could be the right symbol.

I see a close connection with the logo for Banco Provincia by FB again.

It’s another goverment’s company and it’s set with the same font. Is FB repeating themselves or is something about strategy? Who knows…
Somebody pointed out the double A in the old logo and that’s connected with the 70’s livery. It could be another good link to the brand’s heritage and personally I miss a nice ligature between “ti” as in Austral’s.

A bland solution…

On Jun.26.2010 at 12:08 PM

Joaquin’s comment is:

As both an argentinian and graphic design entusiast; I have been mostly obsessed with Aerolineas’ image over the years. This rebrand by FB has been a deception. Not only does the iconic value of the airline gets shattered to pieces; but the whole identity of such an important piece of Argentina’s graphic history has been destroyed.

I myself tried to make a rebrand; and I think it works better than this one. The core value of this airline IS the condor; you can’t redesign it without paying special atention to its shape; which is mostly unchangeable.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4017/4325636871_77aed66321.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4020/4326373262_c2fb25d9b0.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2766/4326376234_443aab7c77_z.jpg

(You can view more here:
http://www.behance.net/gallery/AerolAneas-Argentinas-Rebrand/411596)

The fact is that this redesign makes me both sad and dissapointed. Not only at FB but also at Aerolíneas for not imposing its own grpahical identity and letting the condor just ‘fly away’.

On Jun.26.2010 at 03:44 PM

Adam K.’s comment is:

I love it. I think that the old one will look incredibly dated in 3 years, like the USAir logo did 3 weeks after they changed that one. Its interesting that to me, an American, the change in the Condor looks quite minor, but to native Argentinians, it’s night and day. It makes me wonder if - despite the package being pretty - it will be ultimately unsuccessful.

P.S. Joaquin, those are, for lack of a better word, awesome.

On Jun.26.2010 at 11:01 PM

Cindy Gombert’s comment is:

Nice job. Appropriate. Maintains brand integrity. Friendly, yet trustworthy.

On Jun.27.2010 at 08:59 AM

Zanda’s comment is:

Classic branding that could have been a lot nicer with the condor bigger and an alternative use of the boring corporate pale gray that does not combine well with the light blue

On Jun.27.2010 at 11:28 AM

John’s comment is:

As a designer I see some qualities int th new design, but as a person i prefer the old one. I really see no reasons why every logo design should be as friendly, soft and polished as possible. I see the same problem in new Holiday Inn logo.

On Jun.27.2010 at 11:33 PM

Richars’s comment is:

I think the condor (bird) doesn’t integrate with the type, it feels they wanted to do a very different logo with different typeface but somehow force them to use the bird.
If the question is “does it work?” yes but too conservative for a dream project that I’m sure many people will do it for free.

On Jun.28.2010 at 06:35 AM

Stripeyhorse’s comment is:

The bird looks a lot better but it doesnt seem to integrate with the type for some reason. I agree with Zanda’s comment, the condor could have been bigger.

On Jun.28.2010 at 07:54 AM

obse.’s comment is:

Are you kidding??
Seriously.

First of all, your condor is going BACKWARDS, wich is not good at all if you’re trying to convey the company’s going in a new direction. Specially when we’re talking about airlines: You wouldn’t want your plane to go in the wrong direction. Never.

And to make thing better, you didn’t touch (“redesigned”) the shape of that condor in any way. You just put the old one into not-just-one-but-many circles and added an excess of not needed transparency -which is not even though to be well reproduced in other media, or even B&W-.

I can’t believe how you dare to call your “rebranding” better than FutureBrand’s one. Even their font choice is better than yours, being both light-weighted almost-rounded sans serif.

Stop using BrandNew to promote your own work, please. You’re embarrasing yourself.

Maybe you should have applied for Brand New Classroom? They’re kinder there…

On Jun.28.2010 at 04:39 PM

obse.’s comment is:

(@ Joaquin)

On Jun.28.2010 at 04:41 PM

AdMan’s comment is:

This is terrible and lame. Boring and uninspiring. The bird is badly drawn and the logotype lacks personality. The old brand had more personality that this one, but needed to be updated and some love. But when all that is said - the design one the plane is actually not bad at all.

On Jun.29.2010 at 03:15 AM

Daniel’s comment is:

I like it in general. I agree with some here who say the condor isn’t big enough. The actual application to the aircraft doesn’t seem very strong. Would’ve been more striking with a more powerful use of the condor, instead it’s relegated to being a minor detail on the engine.
D

On Jun.29.2010 at 06:38 AM

Astor’s comment is:

PLease Futubrand, stop killing old brands with your new trend shit design, see Buquebus for more info

On Jun.29.2010 at 08:32 AM

AdMan’s comment is:

I´m kind a shocked on some of the comments in here. I just do not get it. This rebranding is so terrible and lame. It is kind a shocking to read that some actually like this terrible re-branding. Jesus Christ Futurebrand, shame on you.

On Jun.29.2010 at 12:32 PM

Amanda’s comment is:

Is anyone else getting really tired of EVERY new logo using a modern, rounded, “quirky” sans serif face now? I feel like everything is going to feel so dated in a few years when this wave of typestyle passes.

On Jun.29.2010 at 02:58 PM

Mark’s comment is:

I agree about the gray type it fades into the background they should of retained the blue all the way through not half ass it.

They screwed up the bird too. This reminds me of the Blue Bird Bus logo.

After all this the plane doesn’t look bad.

On Jun.29.2010 at 06:58 PM

Julio Ferro’s comment is:

Thinking out loud, maybe the gray isn’t gray but silver. Taking into account that Argent means silver so the idea was colouring the country’s name with its descriptive name.

OK, nice rationale but it fails on the landing strip ;)

On Jun.29.2010 at 11:22 PM

MSGDS’s comment is:

There’s really nothing exciting to say about the new design. It’s nice.

On Jul.02.2010 at 08:50 AM

Yuriy’s comment is:

Imo this is a great rebrand. They didn’t dump too much of their established brand, but updated it with a timeless style that shouldn’t lose appeal for a long time.

On Aug.19.2010 at 06:05 PM