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Thomas Cook
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Project: 'Thomas Cook'


Spraying of Logos



 
In November 2002, smartart took part in a bid for spraying logos onto the vertical tail of passenger planes. The client was ’Thomas Cook’ / Condor. The film stickers that had been used previously had not stood up to the extreme demands of air travel.
 
 
We therefore considered using special plane-coatings. The challenge was the logo itself: apart from the text, this logo consists only of colour-fadings and these are impossible to paint by the varnisher sprayer.
 Thomas Cook logo  
 
 
Each artist was asked to create 2 identical drafts of the logo to get an impression of the feasibility and the reproducibility of the design.
  the first draft

 
 
These were discussed during a meeting at the airport in Frankfurt. The three artists/ companies who had fulfilled the requirements for the draft designs were invited along to the meeting with the management and the Marketing-Director of Condor.
 
 
After the feasibility of this project had been established, a final draft of the design was produced in a combined effort of all three artists.
This undertaking took place a short time later in Oberpfaffenhofen.

Martin Dippel, Walter Maurer, Hermann Bauer  
 
 
Hermann Bauer, P.C.C. (Project leader), Walter Maurer (Art&Design Works (Dachau), Martin Dippel, smartart (Dortmund) and Heller (Berlin) worked as a team to design the detailed process that was necessary to guarantee the reproducibility of the logo.
 
 







The board is prepared...
...and the text template is applied
 
 
The yellow area is pre-lacquered in white.
The yellow fading is sprayed..
 
 
The red border is sprayed.
The blue 'cloud' is sprayed.
 
 
Clearcoat...
...finished. Now only the paper needs to be removed.
 
 

Armin Moser, Maintenance Manager and Miles Perkins from Future Brand (the English agency that designed the logo) were responsible for the inspection. They rated the results ‘very good’ and this meant that we could start working on the first plane.


 
 
A.Moser & H.Bauer

the finished sample

 
 

The first plane was sprayed in Hamburg at ’Lufthansa-Technik’ in November 2003. Walter Maurer and Martin Dippel were the artists who were asked to undertake this task in one of the most modern paint shops garages.


 
 
The first plane in the garage in Hamburg.

Logo-area - pre-lacquered white.

 
 
...is affixed to the pre-lacquered area …
 
The text template...
... then the plane is covered.
 
 
Timing is a particularly important factor when painting planes. Lay days are very expensive and detailed coordination with the paint shop is necessary. Both parties were given a target of 1.5 days.
 
 
Positioning of the text is checked.



The blue background is painted…
 
 
.…then the yellow area is sprayed.
M. Dippel, H. Bauer, W. Maurer
 
 



Hermann Bauer supports the process from a distance.

Clearcoat is applied regularly in order to achieve good fadings.
 
 
The last details...


Finished logo before clearcoating
 
 
In order to avoid any delay in timing, we worked throughout the night. Everything was completed on time to the complete satisfaction of the Thomas Cook teams. We sprayed more planes in other locations, for example in Peking.

 
 
M. Dippel & W. Maurer
after the job was done.
The finished logo on the plane.