British Airways

British Airways is the largest international airline in the world, carrying more international passengers than any of its competitors. In 2018 over 44 million passengers flew on 499,000 British Airways' international scheduled services. That is the equivalent of 80 passengers checking in every minute, 24 hours a day, and a British Airways flight taking off and landing every 90 seconds.

In 2011 'The World's Favourite Airline' was in trouble, having filed its biggest-ever annual loss of £500m in 2010. Customers were joking that BA was shorthand for ‘bloody awful’. The British Airways brand had lost its focus and was using in ruthless cost cutting to try to stay competitive. In the eyes of the customer, the brand was constantly on sale. Once a category leader of customer service, perceptions of quality had fallen and rival Virgin Atlantic was increasing in popularity.

A new initiative was launched, with a spend of more than £5 billion over 5 years on the airline's products and services, including new aircraft, better cabins and improved technology. To enable senior management to spearhead the initiative effectively, there was a need to re-engage them about the history of the brand and the role of design in its success.

Richard Stevens, cofounder of forpeople had written a new brand narrative and core principles, and asked me to express this visually through print and digital media.

'To Fly. To Serve.' was the ethos of a marketing strategy developed by BBH to put the brand back on a leading path. It combined British Airways’ passion for flying, with a British attitude to service.

My previous experience leading the British Airways digital account as a senior Art Director for agency.com, meant I already had a good understanding of the brand and its communications, which is why product design consultancy forpeople asked me to help them develop the narrative they had created into an engaging visual expression across film, print and screen, that felt authentic to the brand’s heritage. They wanted to give the senior managers a reminder of BA's unrivalled knowledge of customers, journeys and destinations, and inspiration to keep looking forward and creating the brand’s future.

I led a small team at forpeople through a discovery phase, that began with collecting different textures, typographic executions and imagery, to help identify a style that projected the right combination of confidence, beauty and personality. And gave a clear sense of a brand built on imagination, engineering and design.

forpeople modernized the famous coat of arms using 3D software, so that it could be applied across any surface at any size—from signage to fuselage. This threaded a visual connection from past to future and coordinated with the ‘To Fly. To Serve.’ TV campaign.

I looked to the design language used in the First Class cabin and lounges at Heathrow Terminal 5, to orient the stylistic approach. I wanted something that didn’t feel overly luxurious or frivolous, whilst also injecting a touch of something new and exciting. I also extended the colour range from magic blue to blue black to bring more drama and edge to the brand.

I embodied the new design language in a book and a set of posters that were also translated into interactive format, and used as reference and inspiration by senior management and design and branding teams throughout British Airways.

The British Airways story of innovation and commitment to enduring design principles and evolving customer and business needs, was called Blueprint.

A reminder of how Flying that made you feel special and good design something that strikes a perfect balance between purpose, people and context.

Creative Director for British Airways and cofounder of forpeople Richard Stevens remarked that: “These guidelines known as Blueprint became the airline’s ‘star design tool’. It acts as an interactive archive for IP and R&D and BA people can access it and it helps them understand and define what it means to be BA,’.

‘Blueprint also helps us communicate what makes us unique to people working for us outside of Britain.’ Quoted from DesignWeek