Southwest AirlinesCopied

Southwest was founded in 1971 at Dallas Love Field, and its first logo was a heart set inside pilot wings. In 1998 the airline swapped the heart for something, as Fast Company put it, starker and decidedly more corporate: an all-caps Helvetica wordmark, often with a jet flying over it.

On 8 September 2014, at an event for its employees, Southwest unveiled a new livery called Heart, a new logo, new airport signage and a refreshed version of its "DING!" sound. Lippincott led the identity, working with GSD&M, VML, Razorfish and Camelot Communications. Rodney Abbot of Lippincott said the work was about "developing the total, integrated brand expression of Southwest", not just the logo or the planes.

The new logo spells Southwest in a custom sans serif in deep blue, upper and lower case, and ends with a small heart striped in blue, red and yellow, the colours of the old tail. On the aircraft the name runs down the fuselage and the heart sits on the belly, where, in the airline's words, it is "a symbolic reminder that we put our Hearts into every flight." Kevin Krone, the chief marketing officer, summed up the brief: "The job wasn't to change who we are. We already know who we are."

Being a low-fare airline, Southwest promised the rebrand would be cost-neutral. Planes would be repainted only on their normal schedule and airports converted during work already planned, so the release warned it "might be some time" before anyone saw the new look in person.

On X the mood was mostly warm. One user simply wrote that Southwest Airlines is happier, while the aviation site NYCAviation asked its followers a question we will not repeat in our own words. The heart is a rare case of a rebrand going back to an old idea and making it better.