A jet-age condor
Olaf Leu's 1975 logo and visual identity for LanChile.
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Lan-Chile, now LATAM Airlines Chile, is the oldest airline in South America, founded in 1929. It began as a postal service but by 1934 started carrying passengers on domestic routes, expanding internationally in 1944 with flights to Buenos Aires and Montevideo. As wide-bodied craft were introduced and demands for commercial aviation increased new destinations were added. These included flights to Bolivia, Peru, Panama and the USA. Chile was then connected to Europe in 1965 as the jet-age took off.
To support the airline’s continued growth in 1975 a working group consisting of graphic designers, design students, industrial designers, architects and sociologists was established to develop a new image for the airline, with Olaf Leu being commissioned to develop a fresh Lan-Chile logo and identity.
Unlike the big commercial airline identity programmes that had come before it (KLM, Swissair, & American Airlines) it was an unusual task as there was no marketing data and or research from which to give shape to such a logo, only what could be seen, the aircraft.
Chile, as it would later be described by Leu, was the ‘embodiment’ of a 'European' country. Unlike its neighbours it was said to have ‘no Indio-folklore’ or ‘motley gods’ and the ‘connection and yearning for Europe was great’. Further, as Leu wrote for Wolfgang Schmittel's book Process Visual, published in 1979 ‘Chile would like to embody a piece of European thinking which the airline, as an ambassador, would be part of’. With this in mind, Leu would say the design task was, in the broadest sense, making the aircraft part of a 'European Chile’.
Prior to beginning, great effort was made to understand the shortcomings of the existing logo and wordmark. The white star, the national emblem of Chile, was considered too militaristic and the aircraft of the American Air Force had the same symbol. Further, the star could also be associated with other nations such as Russia and China. The colours of red and blue didn’t help lower either association.
With these considerations in mind, it was felt that if a star was to be used, that it should be more ‘peaceful’ in nature, and further, the name Lan-Chile should remain but its lettering updated. Alongside this, other ideas should be developed that expressed notions of dynamism, flight, direction, wings and engine-power.
At the time, Leu was a temporary professor of Visual Communication in the Faculty of Art and Technology at the National University of Chile. To generate early stage directions, Leu engaged the 7th and 8th semester students. They were given a free hand.
