Southwest - Southwest Heart

Southwest - Southwest Heart

With the merger of Southwest and AirTran well underway, Southwest was going to have to repaint all the existing Boeing 737s from AirTran with their livery anyway, so decided to refresh the brand all together.

“We don’t call it a rebranding,” Southwest CCO Bob Jordan said. “We call it a bold new look. It is the natural time to evolve our brand to present a bold and modern look that will reinforce us in the minds of our current customers and draw new people to fly us. They want to see a more modern, bold visual interpretation of Southwest— keeping our unique color palate that breaks up the airline industry’s ‘white’ sea of sameness.”

The new brand is called Heart and is based on its employees (who according to Southwest “are serving from the heart”).

Southwest’s new branding includes a complete overhaul of its livery. Nicknamed ‘Heart One’ , the old “canyon blue” on the livery has been retired for a darker shade, the stripes on the tail have been modified, the fonts brought into the 21st century, and -- most significantly – a yellow, red and blue heart added to the plane’s belly. The heart logo also appears by the main entry door.

Southwest also launched a new commercial which loses a bit of the human touch by focusing heavily an airplane. But the sentiment behind it is beautifully expressed: “Without a heart, it’s just a machine.”