Founded in 1985, the Emirates is the largest airline in the Middle East. The full name of the company is Emirates Airline. It is based in Garhoud, Dubai, UAE.
Meaning and history
Emirates Airline began operations in 1985. The company’s first flights were from Dubai, and at the time Emirates Airline had only two leased aircraft – a Boeing 737 and an Airbus A300B4.
Today, the company’s fleet of 255 aircraft, with an average age of five and a half years, is the youngest fleet in the world. In addition to other airlines, Emirates operates 3,600 flights per week from Dubai Airport.
The airline is the first in the Middle East in terms of revenue, number of fleet and passenger traffic. It is also the world’s fourth largest airline in terms of the number of passengers carried to international destinations.
Since 2008, Emirates is among the top 10 airlines in the world according to the Skytrax resource. The company ranked first four times in 2001, 2002, 2013 and 2015. The rest of the years it takes the second, third or fourth position in the ranking.
What is Emirates?
Emirates is the name of the tenth-largest in the world, and the most titles on the Middle East air carrier, which was established in the United Arab Emirates in 1985. Today the fleet of the airline consists of 300 aircraft, which fly in more than 130 locations across the globe.
1985
The original Emirates Airline logo was dominated by the company name in Arabic calligraphy. The English version went below. Both the versions featured a rather elegant style, although they remained perfectly legible. The design was developed by British firm Negus & Negus.
The livery featured a fuselage and the flag of the UAE across the tail of the aircraft.
1999
The overall style of the logo has remained unchanged. Most people would not have spotted the difference unless they compared the two versions side-by-side.
And yet, if you do place the original logo next to the current one, you will notice quite a few differences. Most importantly, the overall style has grown lighter and a little more elegant and luxurious.
While the serifs in the previous Emirates logo had almost a classic look, the design force behind the current wordmark opted for a more creative approach. For instance, the “E” has just a single serif and elongated sharp ends. The overall shape of the glyphs has grown more elongated, too. The way the ends of the letters are directed adds some dynamism.
Font and color
The stable yet sophisticated lettering from the primary logo of Emirates is set in the title case of a fancy font with curved lines and flared sharp ends of the bars. The closest typefaces to the one, used in this insignia, are, probably, Dragon EF DemiBold, or Dahlia Registick Regular, but with some significant modifications of the contours.
As for the color palette of the Emirates visual identity, it is based on a smooth yet deep shade of red, which is closer to pink. This color stands for power and quality, for expertise and confidence of the company, along with their special attitude to the customers.