Professor Otto Firle
The Lufthansa logo began life as the symbol of airline Deutsche Luft-Reederei, which was established in 1917 and began operations two years later in 1919.
In the intervening year of 1918, between its establishment and the beginning of commercial flights Professor Otto Firle designed the stylised and iconic crane in flight symbol.
Light and aerodynamic, the symbol delivered an efficient and elegant visual gesture, either alone, or sitting over the outline of sun or globe, bronze on blue.
In 1926 the German government forced the airline to merge with Junkers Luftverkehr, forming Deutsche Luft Hansa (Deutsche Lufthansa from 1933), which was the flag carrier of the Weimar Republic. This new airline took with it the crane.
At the end of WWII, following the defeat of Nazi Germany; all services of Deutsche Lufthansa were terminated. In 1953, in an effort to create a new national airline, and while West Germany had not yet been granted sovereignty over its airspace, Luftag was founded and started ordering new planes. It also acquired the name and logo of the liquidated Deutsche Lufthansa. On 1 April 1955 Lufthansa won approval to start scheduled domestic flights.
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Between 1923 and the 1960s, the symbol would vary slightly in its drawing depending on its application, and was paired with different typefaces and different blue.
Otl Aicher
It wasn’t until 1963, during a period of expansion and modernisation, which introduced the jet engine to the Lufthansa fleet, that the logo was formalised and a new visual developed under the direction of German designer Otl Aicher. Before settling on an update, various degrees of abstraction, between a crane and an arrow were explored.
In the final design, small details such as a slightly heavier line weight, square terminals, and improved negative space rationalised the logo, increasing its flexibility across a growing number and diversity of applications.
In the spirt of the time, and under the influence of modernism and the Swiss International Style, Helvetica was used to construct the Lufthansa wordmark and became part of the design policy. Although the yellow and blue pre-dated Otl Aicher’s system, a warmer yellow was introduced as a way to feel more welcoming as more people began flying.
Martin et Karczinski
In 2018, the “Lufthansa Blue” project saw the airline’s yellow and blue tailfins replaced with just a deep blue for a more premium feel with yellow being used only as small accents elsewhere. Helvetica was dropped for the digital era and replaced with a custom typeface. Even after historical upheavals, the crane remains in, with only slight updates by Martin et Karczinski.
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