ETHNIC ART GETS A TAILSPIN

As part of an effort to spruce up its staid image, British Airways has earmarked more than $3 million to repaint the tails of its fleet of 308 airplanes with ‘world images.’





BA hopes these new strokes will help transform the carrier from a company perceived as inflexible and monolithic to a global but caring neighbor.





London-based design consultancy Newell and Sorrell was enlisted to scour the globe from New York to the Kalahari Desert in Botswana in search of the indigenous and the ethnic to adorn BA’s aircraft.





Painters, ceramists, potters, weavers and calligraphers have all contributed images.





Some of the artwork (shown here) includes ‘Nami Tsuru,’ a symbolic painting of waves and cranes from Kayama Matazo, one of Japan’s leading artists, and ‘Sterntaler,’ a ceramic panel from German artist Antje Bruggemann.





These images will be complemented by a new, softer, rounder typeface, and a three-dimensional ‘Speedmarque’ logo has evolved from the flat, red...