Today saw Lufthansa launch its new livery in an event in Cape Town. While many will probably like this new clean, monochromatic paint scheme, we can’t help but feel a little disappointed to see such an iconic livery be literally whitewashed. Sure, almost all liveries grow on us with time, but that doesn’t stop us looking at a design from an objective point of view at the time of change.
The new look livery believe it or not, does still include yellow, now just restricted to a small badge by the entrance door to welcome passengers onboard. Introducing this new darker blue design and updated typeface with extended blue fin, there are similarities to the likes of Joon, Qantas, or Emirates, who extend their tail fin down the side of the fuselage.
However, this new livery has removed the grey underbelly which added a virtual weight to the underside, which helped ground the design of the aircraft. Instead, the new livery has added a sense of weight to the tail-end of the aircraft as you can see by the visual representation below, whereby the right hand ball naturally looks like it should appear heavier.
While the full announcement hasn’t gone into depth about the new brand philosophy some documents have explained the new logotype adds a timeless quality, the deeper blue adds “clarity class and confidence.” While we don’t mind the logotype, which has stayed fairly true to its original, we are sad to see the yellow go, the loss of the grey underbelly, which has a practical application of also hiding dirt and grease and the blue tail fin extend, adding a tail-heavy design to the livery.
Three simple tweaks to this design would have kept the strong brand heritage while ensuring the livery kept a contemporary look and feel. Firstly, the tail fin shouldn’t have extended to the bottom of the fuselage. Secondly, the grey underbelly should have been kept, along with grey nacelles. Thirdly, a small touch of yellow, perhaps the circle, in a key line yellow would have kept true to its heritage, matched the yellow still found in the ground product and added a third dimension to an otherwise fairly flat design.
Will this new livery last as well as its predecessor, only time will tell.
TheDesignAir 
I wonder if this is a trick. if there is still more to the design. Time will tell on February 7th.
What a disappointment. The bright yellow ‘spiegelei’ (fried egg) on the tail of Lufthansa’s planes is so iconic! It will be missed.
That’s the thing with the airlines now. They either go the whole way to make an extremely eye catching and interesting livery, or they go from great well known and historically significant designs to the completely bland and boring!! The shocking thing well worth noting is, that some of these airlines are so adamant about keeping the cost cutting to an absolute fine art, but in a completely contradictory move, spend an absolute bomb on paying some design company to conjure up some drivel that the normal ‘man in the street’ or school kid could do a million times better.
Historical significance does do any good to someone who doesn’t know the history.
I like this new design better. Cleaner and more crisp.
I thought the old tail looked a bit cheap.
Weighting the tail down makes the plane look like it’s taking off. Seemed like a good design decision to me.
But I as a customer don’t really care about what the outside of a plane looks like. Give me a comfortable seat.
Highly, highly deceiving!
We’ll see tomorrow what the real thing is, maybe this is just a deception but if this is indeed what the new livery will be, what a crushing dissapointment! Just another boring eurowhite with an ersatz Qantas/UTA/Fedex tail.
It’s not bad, just too bland. If the circle and crane had been yellow, I think it would have been a smart, stylish, though not to original, livery.
Unfortunately it’s just so simple, that it’s lost enthusiasm. I’m surprised that Lufthansa looks like Air Canada, without the excitement of red. Just another me too livery without passion.
So, I was wrong, what a pity!
Without the “Yellow” on the tail it is too bland. Despite the fact that the paint scheme had to get redone because in dark/gloomy weather the color did not come across as the CEO wanted to they had to lighten it. But truly the livery could have been updated beautifully but not without the “Yellow”. Too bad the CEO will not listen to the public and bring back that color on the tail.