AIRWAYS SPECIAL
DMITRY PETROV 2 4
VERA BYKOVA
2 4 Landor ’ s design team needed to adjust the design from an Airbus narrowbody to smaller turboprops , which have completely different designs .
3 Between 1977 and 2014 , Iberia ’ s livery designed by Landor featured the red and gold colors of the national flag with an allusion to the country ’ s attraction as a vacation destination . // ARTURO LA ROCHE
Airways had the pleasure of talking with Ryan Frost , Executive Creative Director at Landor & Fitch , who has dedicated 15 years to the company and has worked on various projects related to brand , architecture , packaging , and environmental designs for airlines . We delved into the design process of an aircraft livery , the ongoing trends in the industry , and the history behind some of the most famous designs in commercial aviation .
Our overall topic : how aircraft liveries define airlines .
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THE FIRST STEPS OF A LIVERY DESIGN
“ It can be quite complex to get to the delivery . The typical design process for us is to start very much at the brand level , so we start with understanding the business and where it wants to go , then moving on to the business strategy , and therefore the brand strategy more often than the livery itself ,” Frost said .
This is done , he added , to consider not only economic aspects but also cultural and ethical inspiration from the airline ’ s country of origin or even the range of destinations generally served by it .
According to Frost , this is also the phase when the first ideas start to emerge , typically represented two-dimensionally and shown to the customer to see whether it feels excited about the concepts , and to start a mutual guidance towards choosing and developing the final product . It is not until then that a number of fixed ideas are chosen to be portrayed on 3D models of the aircraft that the airline wants to paint first .
48 AIRWAYS MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2023 www . airwaysmag . com