Qantas Airways 2016 rebrand
Contributed by Emtype Foundry on Feb 3rd, 2017. Artwork published in
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Founded in the Queensland outback in 1920, Qantas has grown to be Australia’s largest domestic and international airline. Registered originally as the Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited (QANTAS), Qantas is widely regarded as the world’s leading long distance airline and one of the strongest brands in Australia.
The rebranding developed by Houston Group and introduced in October 2016 features Ciutadella as the new corporate typeface.
4 Comments on “Qantas Airways 2016 rebrand”
See also Armin Vit’s review of the new Qantas identity on Brand New.
This is not a criticism of the Ciutadella choice, but the ‘S’ in the logotype is indicative of the work of someone not trained in type design.
Eduardo, I added the link to Brand New not because I agree with Armin’s characterization of Ciutadella, but rather because the article provides some extra information about the project, in particular a comparison with the previous iteration of the brand. I don’t think the new logo is a big hit, for the reason that Stephen mentioned, and also because I didn’t see the need to further stylize the kangaroo. The corporate typeface, by contrast, is hardly the problem here. Armin himself admits that his skepticism regarding Ciutadella “might just be a personal caveat”. I see little informal qualities in it (the round dots? the monocular a?). And its “very vertical aesthetic” with flat-sided rounds is a feature that it has in common with FF DIN, one of the most popular corporate/brand typefaces of the past 20 years.