SkyscannerCopied

Skyscanner launched in Edinburgh to compare flight prices, but by 2019 it also sold hotels and car hire and wanted to be seen as a travel company, not a flight-search tool. Its app had 90 million downloads and 60% of users came via mobile, so the redesign started with the product: new ways to plan by dates or by destination, lower-emission flight options, and a more human illustration style.

London studio Koto spent about a year on the identity, working with some 50 people from Skyscanner's design team, before the in-house team rolled it out. Koto's founder said the old logo, scan lines through a cloud, communicated only one service, and that the guiding principle of putting travellers first meant moving from a function-led to an emotion-led brand.

The new icon shows the curve of the earth with sunbeams rising over the horizon and a small downward notch for a place pinned on a map. Skyscanner said it captured four ideas: optimism, sustainability, ideas and places to discover. The primary colour stayed sky blue, because, as Koto put it, anything else would feel wrong with sky in the name. A wide secondary palette of warm colours from destinations around the world was tested for accessibility. Photography avoided travel cliches in favour of small moments such as long golden-hour palm shadows, and the typeface is Relative from Colophon.

Skyscanner tied the launch to sustainability, citing 10 million users who had picked lower-emission flights in a year and its membership of the Travalyst initiative.

It's Nice That explained why the old cloud with scan lines had to go: it described a flight comparison tool, and Skyscanner had become a place to plan whole trips amid competition from Booking.com, Expedia and Kayak. The new symbol shows the curve of the earth, a subtle indent for a pinned place, and sunbeams rising over the horizon, a shift the agency described as from function led to emotion led. Blue stayed, because with sky in the name anything else felt wrong. The work took a year with around 50 people from Skyscanner's own design team.

The sunrise mark is pleasant, clear and almost too easy to read as generic travel; strip the blue and it could belong to any booking site. What makes the system work is the restraint elsewhere: the anti-cliche photography and the careful palette give Skyscanner the warmth the icon only gestures at.