What does this guy have against American Airlines? As if getting one of their designers fired from his day job [1] wasn't enough.<p>I personally don't see what is so bad about the new redesign. I guess I just have horrible taste.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/6531610/American-Airlines-worker-fired-for-replying-to-web-user-complaint.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/6531610/America...</a>
I've never seen a major brand complete a redesign without at least a little backlash. People have a natural preference for what's familiar, but in time new brands tend to grow on you.
I actually like the "flag" on the tail... it's bold and I think a nice abstraction of a flag; I like the way it completely fills the tail and doesn't use gradients (the most annoying of modern airline logo fads..."hey guys... we can do <i>shading</i> now... go wwwwwild!1!").<p>The rest of the new design is complete crap, of course ("bluh" is a good description, I think), especially that they got rid of the eagle, which was bold, iconic, and managed to combined modernity with a sort of 1930s vibe (i.e., "classic"). Other than the flag, the new design just reeks of risk-averse 1980s corporate mediocrity.
American has been dead to me ever since they got rid of their 'more room throughout coach' tagline. As a taller guy (though not _that_ tall), it basically pushed me to United and their Economy Plus seating, which I love and happily pay a little extra for.<p>I mean, it's not as nice as, say, SAS's normal economy class, but for a US carrier, it's as good as I've gotten without flying business/first.
For some reason, I never liked the American Airlines logo. Sure, it's historic, but it always felt too corporate and stiff to me. A big part of what I disliked about it was the colours. Overall, I think the new one is better looking, however I understand why some designers despise this change.
At first, I hated it, but looking at the linked article, it's not terrible. I prefer the iconic logo, but they could have done a lot worse with this rebranding. It feels fresh and modern, rare for an airliner.<p><a href="http://www.aa.com/newamerican" rel="nofollow">http://www.aa.com/newamerican</a>
I don't have anything against the redesign. The one element of their branding that I love (unpainted aluminum) remained, which makes up for anything else. I do kind of miss the "AA" part, though, but the flag and eagle are nice too.
I like the new design, to be honest, I think it looks pretty great. On the other hand, I like the existing logoscript better, and I find the flag-on-the-tail placement, to be just plain tacky.