LufthansaCopied

Lufthansa's crane is one of aviation's best-known symbols, about 100 years old by 2018. On 7 February that year the airline showed a new design on a Boeing 747-8 and an Airbus A321 before more than 3,000 guests in Frankfurt and Munich.

The crane was redrawn slimmer, inside a thinner ring, to meet new technical requirements and gain what Lufthansa called lightness and elegance. The bigger change was colour: the yellow circle behind the crane and the grey on the aircraft's underside and engines were dropped, leaving a dominant dark blue livery that the airline said reflected its premium claim. Lufthansa said it went through more than 800 designs and its own colour developments in the lab. A new house typeface was designed to be easy to read on phones and smartwatches. Tableware, amenity kits and blankets would all follow.

The design was developed with the Munich agency Martin et Karczinski, a credit confirmed by Lufthansa's own newsroom and by the German trade title Horizont. Dezeen reported that the in-house work was spearheaded by Lufthansa designer Ronald Wild.

Chief executive Carsten Spohr said the crane still stood for quality, reliability and trust, and that the airline was now more modern and successful than ever. Lufthansa called the response predominantly positive, but aviation enthusiasts did not. Airways editor Enrique Perrella called it bland and pointless, industrial designer Clemens Weisshaar told Dezeen it was a design belly flop that ignored Otl Aicher's legacy, analyst Henry Harteveldt dismissed it on Twitter, and The Points Guy's readers mostly found it boring. Spohr answered by wearing Lufthansa-yellow socks at the launch and promising yellow on boarding passes, counters, uniforms and the Welcome panel by the door.

Within three weeks the new blue was already being reworked. Business Traveller reported management concern that the shade, fine in bright light, could look almost black in poor conditions or winter, and a spokesperson admitted that after landings in Hong Kong and New York the paint read much darker than it had in testing. A team would redesign the blue so it was perceived as blue in unfavourable light. For a carrier based in northern Germany, that is a remarkable thing to discover after the first aircraft had been painted.

Dropping the yellow was the controversial part, and UPI's headline led with it. It is a real loss: yellow was what made Lufthansa recognisable at a crowded gate. The redrawn crane, though, is lovely, and the dark blue looks premium on paper.