TO VIRGIN AMERICA’S DESIGN IDENTITY

YOUR BOARDING PASS

TO VIRGIN AMERICA’S DESIGN IDENTITY

JFK SFOS E A T 1 6 D , G R O U P DF L I G H T V X 8 1 43 1 M A Y , 8 : 1 5 P M

BOARDING TIME, GATE A1

LISSA PAVLUK

DESIGN ANALYSIS

WHAT’S UPWHAT’S UPMood lights. Leather seats. Luxury entertainment. The prior doesn’t sound like the traditional amenities of a domestic flying experience. Domestic airline newcomer, Virgin America, saw this market opportunity and launched onto the scene 5 years ago to shake up this traditional industry. The airline, launched by British business mogul Sir Richard Branson, bases its brand strategy on simply “making flying fun again”, and flies to major markets across the United States. VP Marketing, Luanne Calvert stated, “For years, flying domestically had largely become a dismal, uninspired experience. When Virgin America launched, the idea that a domestic airline could reinvent that experience – through technology, design and entertainment – was still a pretty radical notion.” Virgin seeks to reinvent flying with brand new airplanes, high quality service, attractive fares, and fun and innovative amenities such as an array of in-flight entertainment options. Additionally, the design and brand elements of the communications materials and interiors of the airplanes further creates an aura of a luxurious, hip, and trendy flying experience. DESIGN analysis

Virgin America keeps with consistent design themes throughout all communication advertisements and digital media to match the modern brand identity. Starting with the logo, Virgin America uses the script font of the Virgin parent company and differentiates from other Virgin brands with “america” being lower case in a modern font. The airline is recognizable by its main color scheme of red and purple. The typography is normally white, sans serif, and in all caps. With this consistency, the Virgin America design is differentiated across the many traditional airlines in the industry that cater to an older demographic. The design elements are also carefully chosen to give off the modern, stylish feeling of the brand to attract the target consumer of a young, affluent frequent traveler. The brand design on many communications materials, including boarding passes and credit cards, incorporate a vintage flash bulb effect against a red background to further emulate the mood of a red carpet club.

Interior cabin designInterior cabin designThe design stays consistent with the cabin interiors of the airplane as well. The interiors feature a purple lighting instead of the harsh white lights of the traditional airline to create a comfortable, modern experience. Expanding further on luxury and comfort, Virgin America boasts leather seats in each airplane. The design of the cabin also radiates fun and opulence for all passengers due to the amount of entertainment amenities such as 9 inch seat back touch screen televisions, on demand movies, live television, 3,000 song MP3 library, seat to seat chat, interactive Google maps, and the world’s first on demand digital food and drink ordering system all at every seat back. The airline continually strives to keep passengers connected with an airline design featuring fleet-wide WiFi and power outlets at every seat. The design of the cabin is a casual, club-like experience 35,000 feet in the air.

Uniform designUniform designFurthering on trends, Virgin America recently partnered with the modern and refined retailer, Banana Republic, to recreate the uniforms for the pilots and flight attendants. The retailer and the airline worked together to put a modern spin on the traditional industry uniform while making it fashionable and functional. The new uniforms include nine styles for men and thirteen styles for women and keep within the design of the brand and cabin by staying modern, clean, and sleek. The pieces are classically colored greys, blacks, and tans, yet each outfit contains a pop of signature Virgin America red in order for the uniforms to stand out in a sea of traditional navy blue.

campaign in action

Virgin America’s newest ad campaign features frequent flyers of the airline that shook up their own respective industries just as Virgin America did. The airline chose to bypass mainstream celebrities and feature Silicon Valley superstars. These pioneers bring the flying experience to life in a variety of methods including TV advertisements, an interactive walkthrough of amenities through website titled experiencevirginamerica.com, and small exclusive amenities. For example, Ryan Schreiber curated an in-flight soundtrack of 4,000 songs to be debuted on all flights and Alexis Maybank and Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, co-founders of Gilt Groupe, crafted a turkey, brie, grilled pear, and brie sandwich to be served as a dining option. The campaign also encourages guests to get involved by using Instagram to tweet pictures of their experience 35,000 feet in the air via the in-flight WiFi. The pictures will also be displayed in a unique feed on Times Square to continue to share the experience of Virgin America.

Diving a bit deeper into ExperienceVirginAmerica.com, the website creates an interactive experience for users to learn more about the amenities and the airline’s frequent fliers from the Silicon Valley. By clicking and dragging a red circle, the website gives you a tour of the airplane in a creative way such as making the user feel like they are at a baseball game as a way to illustrate the live TV feature. Clicking and dragging the red circle takes you to a new scene where you can learn about a new feature such as in a snow covered forest to highlight the movie options. The red x’s also guide the user towards mini interviews with the frequent fliers detailing favorite in flight activities and Virgin America routes. Of course, all of this is being showed with images of passengers in their seats. Additionally, the airplane in the website is designed with trend in mind as viewed by the outfits of the passengers on the website, the low purple lighting, and the electronics displayed. The airplane and the design of the website were carefully designed with the brand identity in mind as seen by these touches.

campaign in action campaign in actioncampaign in action

near sightednear sightedVirgin America currently boasts an incredible brand identity maintaining consistency and easy identification amongst a variety of different airlines in the industry. However, Virgin America can make some design changes in the short term to be an even stronger brand. The Virgin America website incorporates some of the design elements mentioned earlier such as color scheme and typography. However, these design elements are placed on top of a white background on all pages which doesn’t make the website stand out against the competition. Virgin America should look into incorporating the spotlight effect on the background of the website in either a grey or purple to further drive the fun and modern brand identity. Additionally, the website contains no link to the Experience Virgin America campaign website which contains interactive features for customers to experience the unique amenities. The home page should have a logo using the consistent design elements of Virgin America to link to the campaign website.

Looking to the future, Virgin America’s brand identity is based on modernity and trends which easily fluctuate throughout time. For example, Virgin America needs to continually identify and incorporate the trends of the future. Since trends change constantly, Virgin America needs to be aware of how this will affect its brand in terms of interior cabin design, uniforms, and typography. Just because the design elements are strong now, does not mean the elements will be strong in the future. Additionally, Virgin America should keep looking for cutting edge technology and how to incorporate it in their brand. As an example, mobile boarding passes are becoming extremely popular and will soon be the norm. Virgin America should be a leader in this area considering its target customer and brand identity, and the design of the Virgin America mobile boarding passes should incorporate Virgin’s design elements such as the red and purple, capitalized sans serif typography, and spot light effects to give the mobile boarding pass a red carpet look.

far sightedfar sighted

The last wordThe last wordEach design aspect of Virgin America, from promotional materials to cabin interiors to stewardess uniforms, were specifically chosen to show the modern and trendy persona of the airline. The airline is extremely careful in keeping the colors, purple and red, consistent throughout their communications materials. The choice of typography also makes the brand identity of making flying fun again very clear as the airline uses strong, modern, sans serif fonts in all capital letters. Even the tailored designs of the flight attendant uniforms created by a fashion forward retailer stand out amongst the traditional navy uniforms and fit with the identity. The passenger additionally feels the brand presence with the interior cabin design with cushy, leather seats, countless entertainment options, and low, purple lighting. Virgin America designed their brand to stand out against the traditional airlines with cloth seats in a stark white cabin. The airline strived to design an experience to make flying fun again based on the mission statement, and the design choices make that evident to the consumer.

e n j o y y o u rf l i g h t

SOURCESSOURCES Contenthttp://adage.com/article/news/virgin-america-latest-highlight-tech-stars-ad-campaign/237016/

http://www.virginamerica.com/about/airline-company.htmlhttp://www.virginamerica.com/press-release/2012/virgin-america-experience-campaign.html

http://www.virginamerica.com/press-release/2012/virgin-america-and-banana-republic-2012.html

PhotosPhotos were found using a Google Image search using the following search terms: Virgin America design,

Virgin America cabin interior, Virgin America uniforms, and Virgin America.

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