The airline industry has been hit particularly hard over the past decade. Most airlines these days are struggling to stay afloat amidst rising fuel costs, increased security concerns and unpredictable events such as the volcanic eruption in Iceland that closed European airspace in April of this year. In response to these as well as other rising concerns among the airline industry, two world famous airlines, United and Continental, announced earlier this year that they would be merging their two companies into one.
The new logo design created for this newly combined airline is being called ‘a logo mash-up’ because it combines aspects of both the old United and the old Continental airlines. The new airline is called United while it uses the old Continental logo design and colours. The new airlines slogan is “Let’s Fly Together”.
Here are the two old United and Continental logos:
Here is the new United airline logo:
Do I like the new United logo design?
I think that this new logo design is very boring. To begin with, I think that the old Continental airline logo design is cliché, tacky and dated. The globe imagery is too common and overdone and it doesn’t add up to a remarkable or memorable logo design. Good logo designs are unique, eye-catching and stunning. The old Continental logo design is neither of these so why bother recycling it for the new United logo design? Why not create something new, creative and innovative in its place?
A logo design like this makes me wonder if any graphic designers were actually involved in the whole logo redesign process. To me, it looks more like the CEO’s simply got together and decided, “hey, this looks like it’ll work. Why not?”
I think that it is really unfortunate that they are missing out on such a valuable and amazing opportunity here. Neither the old United nor old Continental airlines had a great reputation. Why not take this fantastic opportunity to rebrand the new airline with a fresh, new and exciting logo design? Having a new logo design would help people to make new associations with the new United airline instead of having them cling onto the old United and Continental reputations of the past. Wouldn’t that be a much better idea? A logo should be a representation of a companies values and service. Do they really want their customers to remember the poor customer service that both airlines have provided in the past?
In closing, I wanted to mention that I came across a website the other day called subjectiveobject.com that offers up what I think is an excellent suggestion for United airlines (if they ever want to consider a logo redesign). They too created a new logo of United airlines based on the logo history of the two airlines however, they came up with something much better. They took the old Continental logo that was designed by Saul Bass in 1968, added a gradient to it using the old Continental logo’s dark blue and the old United light blue and voila. They created a far better and more modern United logo design. Here it is (visit their website to find out more):
