The project: When the Kingston Airport set out to increase their passenger base and promote air travel in the region, they faced substantial obstacles. A fuzzy identity, inadequate knowledge of services, and issues with signage and accessibility hampered the airport’s efforts to move forward.
A thoroughly modern airport, Kingston offers regular service to and from Toronto, air ambulance services, flight training and recreational flying. It is also the largest airport in the Eastern Ontario region. However, many people in the community still viewed the airport as an old military base or just a flying club. They were unaware of the scope of the airport’s services.
The Kingston Airport also lacked an identity of its own and was marketed as a division within the City of Kingston. Additionally, customers had difficulty distinguishing the airport from its airline, Air Canada. After years of being overshadowed by more recognized brands, the airport’s image needed a boost.
A 2007 customer satisfaction and benchmarking report measured customer satisfaction levels regarding airport facilities and services. Of the 10 airports surveyed, Kingston Airport ranked 10th in overall satisfaction. Customers were critical of the decor and of the airport’s signage systems.
The Kingston Airport needed a way to establish itself as a modern airport, improve its customer experience and create better awareness surrounding its services.
We set out to create a strong corporate identity, a positioning statement, improved signage and collateral materials. The airport could use these tools to execute an effective promotional campaign.
The Challenge: This was a broad, multi-faceted project with a number of issues. However, we found that many of the airport’s problems stemmed from its lack of identity. By solidifying an identity, we could create tools to address the airport’s other issues.
We needed to create a unique, memorable identity that clearly defined the Kingston Airport. “The identity needed to make Kingston look like a commercial airport and not a flying club” said Jen Cameron, Designer at BmDodo Strategic Design “it needed to stand out no matter where it was.”
For Shirley de Silva, former Airport Manager, a unique identity was critical. Shirley was a driving force behind the improvement project because she could not find a way to market the airport properly. “We didn’t have any materials that truly reflected us and the scope of our services. We’re a modern airport, we just weren’t being recognized” said Shirley.
Because we were working to shift old perceptions of the airport, Shirley specified that the logo could not contain an airplane. She had seen other airport logos, which reminded her of clip art, and wanted something simple and contemporary. We immediately had to think of non-traditional ways to capture what the airport was trying to communicate.
This identity also had to reproduce across multiple areas. We had to consider all possible applications of the identity as well as its ability to grow.
The Solution: Because the airport’s main goal was to increase passenger loads, we had to convince more people to travel out of Kingston Airport. We asked ourselves “how do we make Kingston Airport the place you want to start your journey?”
Although the airport only offers routes to and from Toronto, you can travel from Toronto to anywhere in the world. “We wanted communicate this potential and distil all the possibilities into a single image” says Jen.
This led us to the idea of designing a visual flight path. The dot above the “I” in Kingston represents the initial point of departure; Kingston Airport. It leads to a white circle which represents the hub, an international airport that will take travellers to their final destination.
We chose a color palette that projected calmness as well as energy and warmth. The colors radiate from the centre of the logo indicating endless travel possibilities. “The blues and oranges would also make passengers think modern rather than old and rickety” added Jen.
The design even inspired the airport’s new positioning statement: from here to anywhere.
“Brian and Jen had the ability to look into our organization and bring out our best in the design process” said Shirley, “their style and creativity captured exactly what we were trying to communicate.”
The new identity was applied to collateral materials such as brochures, corporate folders, conference materials, giveaways for children and banners. “Brian and Jen gave us lots of materials to raise awareness” said Shirley “they were key, simple things that outlined the services we offered as an airport.”
The new identity and subsequent materials would be a key component in the airport’s promotional campaign. We were careful to create materials that could handle any situation and would allow the airport to pursue broad marketing opportunities.
After settling on the new identity, we needed to address inadequate, inconsistent signage. We updated the signage with the new colors, which provided consistency, but accessibility was still a big issue. The old signage was set well above human eye level and did not take visually impaired passengers into account.
“We always design thinking 5 years down the road” said Brian Dodo, Designer & Creative Director at BmDodo Strategic Design “so we created the signage anticipating the airport’s growth.” We moved all the signage down to eye level, keeping in mind children and passengers in wheelchairs, we made the typeface high contrast and large enough for visually impaired passengers and we incorporated Braille. All the signage, including the Braille, was written in both of Canada’s official languages. “Fully accessible, bilingual signage is unusual for an airport of Kingston’s size” said Brian “but we wanted to give Kingston another way to stand out as a modern commercial airport. We created signage for the kind of airport Kingston will be as it grows.”
The Results: Kingston Airport had high expectations and we delivered effective solutions. “From the beginning, Brian and Jen left us with the impression they would produce something that commanded attention” said Malcolm Morris, Transport Director for the City of Kingston.
The impact was felt immediately. “The logo allowed us to change our image right away. It was very well received and could be used on all our materials.” Brochures and collateral materials could be distributed and went far in communicating professionalism and creating awareness. “It was certainly a step up from the one page, unbranded print out that we previously used to outline our services” adds Shirley. She also found that having materials which focussed entirely on the airport, and not on Air Canada or the City of Kingston, helped created a distinct impression.
For Malcolm, we provided the airport with a platform to build partnerships and market through other organizations. “The new identity has improved our ability to equip people like KEDCO to help us sell the airport. Brian and Jen produced tangible, tactile things like marketing packages so others could promote the airport on our behalf.” The airport was able to carry out an effective promotional campaign using the new materials and positioning statement.
While it is outside the traditional realm of design firms, our work was also applied to the building improvements on the airport’s list. The signature colors were integrated into the building’s new design, which addressed customer comments about out-dated decor and atmosphere.
Our accessible signage further contributed to creating an updated, contemporary building. Fully accessible, bilingual signage went above and beyond the expectations of a small airport and erased any notions that Kingston was a tired, old flying club.
“We plan to improve everything that was mentioned in customer surveys” says Shirley “BmDodo’s work has influenced all of the improvements so far.”
It was a positive experience for Malcolm “Brian and Jen met and in many cases exceeded our expectations. I can say with certainty that we’re much better equipped to move forward.”
Since making updates and implementing the design solutions, the Kingston Airport’s passenger load has increased significantly. Attitudes from the city council and senior management have improved and the airport is now viewed as an asset to the city. According to Shirley, “BmDodo offered us a complete package. We didn’t initially have any tools for improvement and BmDodo gave us those tools.”
To add to the list of successes, the airport's "from here to anywhere" promotional print materials were awarded first place in the print advertising category of the ACI‐NA's (Airport Council International ‐ North America) 2010 Excellence in Marketing and Communications contest. The materials beat out a field of submissions from 55 airports around the world ‐ including ones from the Aeroports de Montreal, which placed second in this category, and Denver and Louisville International Airports which tied for third. More than 250 submissions overall were received for the 17 categories covered by the contest.
"We've been extremely happy with our beautiful new logo and ads. This kind of recognition demonstrates that good design effectively augments our reputation within the industry while promoting our services” said David Snow, Airport Manager “Hats off to Brian Dodo."
