American Airlines Logo, 1967

Massimo Vignelli, Heiz Weibl & Henry Dreyfuss’ 1967 logo for American Airlines.

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The growth of commercial international air travel afforded countries the opportunity to project aspects of their culture into foreign lands. This was particularly true for those national airlines known as ‘flag carriers’. Through these, nations could share their values and character. This accounted for many of the iconic motifs of freedom, power and efficiency seen in logos. These included birds (JAL), crowns (KLM) flags (BEA) and a variety of arrows (Austrian Airlines). American Airlines (American) opted for a bold image of a bald eagle soaring over a depiction of a globe, flanked by double A’s.

What was often common to many of the airlines through the 1930s to mid-1950s was their literal depictions, motifs brought to life illustratively. These, however, were somewhat incongruous with the coming of the jet age in the 1960s, which was characterised by sleek (but increasingly wide-bodied jets), as well as modernised services, lounges and check-in desks.

Further, as airlines expanded, new requirements for the use of corporate image emerged. These included the need for standardisation across the globe, the employ of economies of scale and a new flexibility that would accommodate many different services and surfaces.

Airlines such as Polish flag carrier LOT, Swissair and KLM had undergone pioneering rebrands by the mid 1960s and had led the way, simplifying their logos and rationalising their identities; formalising corporate colours, typefaces and their applications. At the same time, American had invested heavily in new aircraft, and introduced the first electronic booking system. This commitment to modernisation also expand to its corporate identity. American would be introduced to Massimo Vignelli (Unimark International) through Henry Dreyfuss, the design consultant and industrial designer who was hired to develop the interior of the planes.

Vignelli and Italian designer Heinz Waibl would led the design of the new American corporate identity, which would cover all aspects of the airline, from its logo, colour palette and typeface to tickets, tags and livery design. Believing simplicity was better than complexity, much of what Vignelli and Waibl sought was efficiency and strength, ‘proceeding by logic, not emotion. Not trends and fashions’ striping everything back to a single typeface, Haas Helvetica, and two colours – the national colours red and blue.

The rational stripped back approach would also extend to a logo, two initials, AA, distinguished from one another only by colour. This would function as a ‘secondary mark’, second to a full wordmark that removed the space between ‘American’ and ‘Airlines’. There were no other airline logos at the time that had taken this approach and afforded it differentiation. The project would later be said to have popularised the use of Helvetica in the United States. A stacked two line version would increase the flexibility where horizontal space was limited.

However, it was reduction gone to far in the minds of the management and employees. Since 1934, American had used a bald eagle. It was a powerful expression of a proud nation venturing into foreign lands. It resonated. To remove this would be to remove the national character from the airline

A purely typographic approach, despite its progressiveness, would lose the support and potential pride of its employees… a ‘revolt’ led by flight attendants, demanded the return of the eagle.

The designers at Unimark refused outright. In order to move the project forward, American returned to a familiar partner and consultant Henry Dreyfuss, asking him to design an ‘appropriate eagle’ that would find a connection with the past and what Unimark had proposed for the future. A hybrid emerged.

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The ‘AA’ proposal by Vignelli was paired with Henry Dreyfuss Associates' stylised eagle which swooped down between the letters. In the end, Vignelli would conceded that it “was not so bad”. This broke the deadlock and the identity was developed for application. This included livery design where, again, management and designers were at logger-heads about paint, with Vignelli appealing for full-body coverage, and the airline having concerns about the weight and fuel cost that the paint would add.

The compromise would be an unpainted fuselage with three ‘cheat lines’ in red, white and blue. These cheat lines intended to retain the sleekness of smaller jets on larger wide bodied craft as commercial aviation sort economies of scale.

The corporate identity of Vignelli, Wiabl and Dreyfuss would last over 45 years. And although some changes would be made later by Vignelli Associates in the 1980s, adding a contrasting serif in the form of Garamond extending its use and potential in terms of advertising. In 2013, Futurebrand would be invited to help the airline into the digital age, revising all aspects of the brand. This ultimately led to the retiring of the work of Unimark in favour of a much derided logo that remains in use today.

Discover more American Airlines brand assets and assets from hundreds of other historical and contemporary brands at Brand Archive.

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