Germanwings New Look Revealed

It seems that Lufthansa’s pet project ‘Direct 4 U‘ has finally come to fruition, with a launch of the ‘new’ germanwings penned in for July 1st 2013. Germanwings’ old livery, of fake metallic, lurid yellow and deep burgundy is going, and is being replaced with a fairly decent and modern Euro-white livery that seems a lot more considered.

Germanwings has matured into its new look. This grown up, pseudo Lufthansa livery is actually refreshing. The only nod to its Lufthansa parentage is the grey underbelly and text under the logotype the tagline ‘Lufthansa Group’ in Lufthansa grey appears. This sits well with the airline’s new positioning as a baby-Lufthansa. A metro-airline connecting European city pairs either as a standalone unit or as feeder traffic for Lufthansa’s long haul routes. (Not a new concept – in fact very similar to current Euro-rivals Iberia Express)

What is great is this bold new graphic, which is intelligent, bold and striking. Sometimes simplicity is key, and this modern, bright and easily identifiable logo of what can only be presumed are two stylised contrails from the engines as the plane take off, create a ‘W’ logo part of the germanwings logo. The removal of the faux-metallic finish to the aircraft actually should make their airline a little more sophisticated, and should match their inflight product, as I always felt their brand and product were slightly at odds, and I was always pleasantly surprised to get on board, as the experience was much better than their rather confused livery led to believe. We love the little logo under the cockpit windows too, a nice touch, rarely seen.

What isn’t so great, is the germanwings font. Obviously trying to echo the typeface of Lufthansa, the lowercase treatment is a little overdone by airlines trying to offer ‘friendly – easy – low cost products’ (think jetstar, easyJet, tiger, spirit, virgin america) I would have hoped for a better treated typeface, one that harmonised with the logo on the tail. Still, if you look at German design, magazines, print etc, you’ll see there is a great trend to follow simplistic and somewhat underworked typefaces in branding, so it’s not surprising to see them using this design concept. This is a European airline with Germanic routes, and quite rightly so, proud.

germanwings have released a video of their new branding too, check it out! We look forward to seeing these birds flying next year.