Thursday, June 13, 2019

Air Force One Livery Design





The history of the United States' “Air Force One” is interesting. It involved a famous industrial designer and very personal choices by the John and Jackie Kennedy. Raymond Loewy made two visits with John Kennedy and they worked out the ideas with "crayons and cutting up paper." Here is an account taken from the New England Historical Society:


Then Loewy visited the National Archives to examine historic documents. He was struck by the first printed copy of the Declaration of Independence, it had the new country's name set widely spaced in capital letters in a typeface known as Caslon.

Kennedy had already ordered the Air Force to remove the military lettering in favor of the simple United States of America.  And he told Loewy he liked blue.
Loewy chose two blues: slate and cyan. He left the underside of the fuselage silver and added the presidential seal near the nose, a large American flag to the tail, and the words "United States of America" in capital letters using the Caslon typeface.

The First Lady had a hand in designing the interior of the plane. She made sure the president had his own entrance, a customized bed, a stateroom, a conference room, glassware from Tiffany’s and a pale blue rug with an American eagle in the center of an oval with 13 stars.

Loewy's 1962 drawing
(Source: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/196025)


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