Eight Partnership unveils new streamlined branding for Cathay Pacific’s fleet of aircraft
Hong Kong based airline Cathay Pacific has unveiled a new livery designed by Eight Partnership. The first plane to feature the new livery, a Boeing 777, was revealed to about 500 VIP guests during an official launch ceremony at Hong Kong International Airport yesterday.
“The new livery captures Cathay Pacific’s brand values,” says Ivan Chu, Chief Executive of Cathay Pacific. “It safeguards our heritage but also looks forward to our future with its timeless, yet contemporary elegance, it blends our Asian roots with our global outlook and, most importantly, it reflects the spirit of the people that work for Cathay Pacific and the service that we provide our customers.”
As one of Asia’s top airlines with a fleet of more than 140 aircraft and flying to 70 destinations worldwide, the approach focused on building from the strengths of the existing identity. Central to the new designs are the highly iconic Asian calligraphic brushwing motif on the tail, a more prominent size and placement of the Cathay Pacific wordmark and a new streamlined colour scheme.
“Our research confirmed that the brushwing icon had significant positive brand equity, so the focus was on making it cleaner, stronger, better. In keeping with the airline’s brand ethos, the overall ambition is to continuously simplify and purify the brand experience for passengers. This new identity will now be visible on the airline’s most important assets and most symbolic brand ambassadors – its fleet of aircraft,” said Eight’s Creative Director Iain Richardson.
Design on the new livery began in early 2015 and involved exploring hundreds of options featuring a combination of different designs for the tail, fuselage, nose and wingtips as well as multiple production tests. The new livery design has been adapted for use on seven different aircraft types, from the Boeing 747 Cargo version to the newest Airbus models.
“This is arguably the most symbolic part of all the work we have been doing with the team at Cathay Pacific over the past two years. It’s been an incredibly rewarding collaborative effort that has involved a multitude of talented people at all echelons within both firms”, says Chris Fjelddahl at Eight.