Sign In
Create Account
Find content
Ladies, gentlemen, and others,
Submissions are now closed for North American Design Competition number 3. We are excited to evaluate and discuss your work. We will work diligently to have scores and detailed feedback available soon.
NADC3 Team
ThePessimist
ThePessimist
Member Since 27 Mar 2016Offline Last Active Apr 09 2025 10:51 PM
In Topic: 2023 East Asia Design Challenge
03 September 2023 - 05:04 AM
Tempest 龙风
Full-service
Taipei, Taiwan
1990s - Modern
This livery is very conservatively designed and the tail logo is literally just the logo that the holding company TGC used by the time the airline was founded in the mid 1980s. Orange was actually the company's original primary colour due to the company's history (see below) and purple was frequently used by Tango Creameries' banking division to clearly contrast with the dessert side of the business. Designers chose to fuse the company's two primary colours and add a splash of teal to enhance the scheme. The colour scheme was virtually the only risk the designers made back in the early 90s but their goal was to play it safe and make a livery that just worked. Further, it is unlikely that they thought their work would persist for nearly 30 years. This livery was a bit hard to make because I think I have a tendency to over-design but the trend of over-designing really doesn't work for the 80s/90s period in this region particularly when I wanted it to be fairly clear that this was an airline managed by a giant investment bank that hasn't faced the public very much in over a decade.
For reasons explained below and explained in even more detail on the gallery post for the 787, TGC became Typhoon and TGA became Tempest in 2020 off of a rebrand that was actually designed around 2010. The new livery, shown on a 787, is a significant improvement over the old identity. The name, although a little odd for an airline, looks and sounds better in English and is simplified to two simple characters in the Chinese name. The livery seeks to build off of TGA brand loyalty by retaining a similar colour scheme and designing a new logo that fits the name and looks swish but also has a similar form the old TGC/TGA logo. The swoops on the fuselage reflect the motion of the logo and add to the feeling that this livery isn't as old and chintzy as the one its replacing. Bold fuselage titles and a much larger English name will (theoretically) allow the carrier to better compete on an international stage, particularly as it seeks to cement its position in the Trans-Pacific market. This one is simple and slick and I think works pretty well as something still rather conservative made reactively (not proactively) to prevent the airline from looking totally and unabashedly obsolete. I think this livery ends up looking a bit America coded (not just because of UA) but I think that works given Taiwan's unique status and also the fact that Typhoon's second largest market is the USA so design inspo from across the great blue seems reasonable.
I thought about finding a fun way to spill the beans on what I would personally consider to be some entertaining, unique, and relatively realistic lore and decided on the method attached below. I implore you to read it if for no other reason that entertainment value. The orange is like mango. Thank you for your consideration
In Topic: 2023 Code Sharing Challenge!
06 January 2023 - 02:38 PM
Scheduled Commercial + Auditoriums - Dulles Skylounge by Valiant
When drawing up plans to rebuild its main terminal at Dulles International (IAD), architects came to the conclusion that Valiant's primary lounge used by Business and First class passengers would need to be totally demolished to make way for upgrades and improvements. With this news, Valiant began considering options to retain a high quality lounge for its patrons at Dulles during the construction. Their solution was unconventional but extremely interesting. Instead of finding a space within the terminal to build a temporary lounge, Valiant would create their own space outside of the terminal and shuttle first class and business passengers to it. In 2016, Valiant purchased a recently retired 747-400, repainted it in a slightly modified iteration of the Valiant scheme, and flew it to Dulles where it was parted out on a remote stand for several months. Much of the interior was removed as were the engines (which were replaced with end of life dummies). Later, the aircraft was towed to a less remote stand close to the terminal where a significant hole was cut in the aircraft's rear fuselage and a large tower containing an elevator and emergency stairs was installed near the rear of the aircraft. The main floor of the aircraft, featured in the map below, contains a bar and lounge marketed as Club 74, A full service restaurant with a buffet called the Loudoun Restaurant (after the county in which Dulles is located), a conference room called the Morris Room (in honour of the family which founded Valiant), and gender segregated wheelchair accessible restrooms. The structure's upper deck features a seating area with couches and various chairs that provide a panoramic view of the airport tarmac. Below the main deck is a kitchen for employees as well as shower facilities, gender-neutral restrooms, various small seating areas for customers, and certain utilities (mainly air conditioning). The Skylounge is connected to the airport's electrical and water systems. When it is open and it is not raining, customers board the Skylounge with a set of truck mounted airstairs, but employees and disabled customers use the elevator located at the rear. Since opening in 2017, the lounge has been very well reviewed by airline critics and passengers alike. The excellent views and facilities it offers makes up for the relative inconvenience of requiring a short shuttle ride to access. Valiant was intentionally ambiguous as to whether the Skylounge would be temporary. The new terminal floor plan included a large area which could have been fitted as a lounge if the Skylounge and its associated schedule prove to be uneconomical. However, reports suggest that as construction nears its conclusion on the new terminal, the space has been used as an office complex and staff break room - suggesting that Valiant does not plan to replace the Skylounge in the immediate future.
In Topic: North American Design Competition 2022
15 December 2022 - 10:36 PM
[Group A Westwind WW, WST, Westwind, San Diego]
Westwind was a major American carrier based in San Diego with hubs at San Diego and San Francisco. A thoroughly Californian company, Westwind was known for operating in a manner different than its competitors. For one, unlike most American major carriers, Westwind confined itself to the Western portion of the United States. Apart from its two hubs, its focus city in Salt Lake City rounded out its network. The airline figured it understood the Western market and shouldn’t take its chances with other hub markets. The airline was well known for its extensive and historic network of flights across the Pacific Ocean and even though it almost entirely abrogated the transatlantic market, the airline was a major player amongst Transpacific and Hawaiian flights. Management was known for its aversion to change – seeing rapid change as akin to chaos. The airline operated a unitype narrowbody fleet entirely consisting of A320, 319, and 321 aircraft. On the larger side, the airline operated a somewhat more varied fleet of 767 variants and 777-200ERs. Fleet numbers were called fleet designators because they included a combination of letters and numbers. Inflight meals were entirely produced by the carrier and never subcontracted. Westwind had a way of doing business and the institutional culture that did not easily change or reflect the best practices of its competitors. The airline was a stock market darling amongst other airlines because it had the fastest recovery from 9/11 of any American based carrier. Although seen as a beacon of economic stability, the airline’s cash reserves after 9/11 and into the mid-2000s deteriorated. Despite this, the airline’s stock price remained stable and management remained content through this period. However, with the stock crash of 2008, the airline’s stock suffered a major crash. Shareholders clambered for change but management publicly announced that they would stay the course and avoid major operational changes. This was not a popular decision with stockholders who kicked off a revolving door of executives. Competitors smelled blood in the water and began making bids to takeover the ailing carrier and its valuable chunk of the West Coast and Pacific market. Valiant won that bid and announced that the last Westwind flight, WWA 254, would depart Kansas City for San Diego at 11:58 pm December 31, 2009. Westwind officially ceased to exist as the clock struck midnight and crowds cheered the beginning of a new decade two minutes later. The airline's branding lasted a few years longer but no aircraft made it past 2012 wearing Westwind colours.
This poster comes from 2005, during which Westwind took delivery of extended range 777 aircraft to inaugurate new routes. During this time, the airline also adopted a retro-esq style to its advertising. Due to the impending financial crunch, this style was effectively the last Westwind would ever deploy in a large scale advertisement campaign.
[Group B Star AS, ARS, Oswalt, San Antonio]
Star is an American low cost carrier founded in Texas in the 1970s by Richard Oswalt as Airmerican Star. Growing from a carrier seeking to undercut Texas giants on the highly popular short distance San Antonio - Houston and Houston - Dallas routes. Until the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, airlines could avoid the price fixing which forced major carriers to operate a certain standard of service by operating within the bounds of a single state (otherwise the act would have exceeded the Federal Government's authority under the Interstate Commerce Clause of the American Constitution, a fact the Supreme Court of the United States confirmed with its 7-2 ruling in Oswalt v Association of American Airlines for Market Stability). The airline thrived in its early days simply by providing slightly cheaper and more frequent service on its original two routes as well as routes to other Texas airports like El Paso and Austin. In 1978, when the Airline Deregulation Act passed, the airline was forced to innovate to survive an onslaught of true low cost competitors that operated on shoestring budgets. Richard Oswalt's original plan to deal with this new competition was to expand rapidly and establish the carrier as a trendy alternative to mainline airlines. Oswalt's plan was successful thanks to the well timed death of an elderly friend, not because of any particular business acumen. In the 90s, the airline began to transition away from Oswalt's business strategy of trying to make an inherently uncool airline trendy and instead competing with the low cost carriers just as they competed with each other - by cutting costs. After 9/11, the airline was sold by its holding group who chose to float a public offering. After the initial public offering, the airline began what would become an extremely long and painful process the rebrand the airline and finally shelve the cumbersome and unattractive Airmerican portion of its name. This came with the creation of a mascot, Happy the Star who would terrify children around the nation represent the brand to young customers as it transitioned into the family leisure travel market. The original rebrand went off with many hitches and the original vision of Happy was serious revised by a second design studio. Despite the brand chaos, the airline continued to grow into new markets and overhaul its fleet to move away from fuel thirsty T tailed jets in favor of slick A320 series aircraft. The airline solidified the presence of Happy by enlarging him and the emphasizing its new website FlyStar.com on a 2012 revision of the livery. The Coronavirus and modern times seemed prepared to push the airline to the brink of bankruptcy, but the carrier has survived to thrive into the new decade and introduce a dynamic update to Happy the Star and its brand identity generally. Click the album and browse my gallery posts for more detailed lore and to see the evolution of the carrier and their mascot
The modern livery is pictured below on a brand new state of the art A321neo aircraft.
The Star Credit Card, under the new Star branding, is quite slick. With its new card, Star also revealed the successful outcome of their talks with Unionpay to become the first Unionpay network card widely used in America. This deal was mostly down to Unionpay offering a better rate than their previous vendor, Discover.
Finally, I have attached a memo from the airline distributed around the time of the latest brand refresh known internally as the Juice Memo.
