Holmes Wood designs new easyJet livery

The new look is the first update to easyJet’s livery since 1998 and retains the airline’s orange and white colour scheme. It comes as the airline marks its 20^th anniversary this year.

It follows easyJet’s 2011 update to its brand guidelines – created with VCCP – which saw a new look and feel introduced across advertising and other touchpoints.

The new look sees the orange on the tailfin extended on to the fuselage of the planes, to create a larger space for the easyJet logo. The logo is now apparently 15 per cent bigger than in the previous design.

An orange stripe has been introduced across the fuselage, which reflects the design language of easyJet’s advertising.

This also means the easyJet logo can be reversed out of this orange on the fuselage – reflecting the airline’s brand language. This creates a “sleek, more modern look” according to easyJet.

The “.com” has also been dropped from the easyJet logo. This was first introduced to easyJet plans in 1998, when it replaced a call-centre number.

Holmes Wood has been working on the new livery designs for around six months, in collaboration with easyJet’s in-house engineering team.

Holmes Wood co-founder Alex Wood says: “We have spent a lot of time getting to know the personality and attitude of the easyJet brand and this new livery design was a direct translation of that.”

Wood says the livery designs were created using 3D modelling before final designs were ready to be applied. Although Holmes Wood worked on environmental designs for Virgin Atlantic’s 2011 rebrand, this is the first time the consultancy has worked directly on airline livery.

Wood says: “Obviously there are a lot of technical challenges and we worked very closely with the engineering teams. Planes have a lot of things on the exterior that you might not immediately notice and you have to worked hard to give them the appearance of looking smooth.”

EasyJet commercial director Duffy says introducing the new livery will be “a low-cost makeover” and will roll out across the airline’s 226 aircraft over the next five years.

EasyJet says 29 aircraft will be flying with the new look by the end of 2015 and 50 per cent of the fleet will sport the new livery by the end of 2017.