Expedia’s Logo Takes Flight

The start of 2009 meant a new look for Expedia. The travel web site unveiled a somewhat less playful logo than the one they’d been sporting for the past ten years. The bright bubblegum yellow and blue colors of the old logo were replaced with a more sombre dark blue palette. The airplane symbol is still there but in a more sophisticated stylised shape. The new logo also comes with the tagline, “Where You Book Matters.” set in a somewhat mechanical “handwritten” typeface.

New Expedia Logo With Tagline

Expedia was born in 1999 as a division of Microsoft. It was later bought by Ticketmaster and in 2005 Expedia went out on their own.  Throughout its lifetime the logo consisted of a blue bubble with a little yellow cartoon airplane flying around it. Initially the logo included “.com” but this was eventually dropped as Expedia expanded around the globe with multiple sites.

Old Logo With Cartoon Style Symbol

Paul Leonard, VP of brand marketing at Expedia says of the logo;

As before, an airplane and circular blue “globe” make up the new logo. But the plane is white, not yellow, and the whole look and feel is “less cartoonish,”.  We were striving for a more timeless and classic aesthetic, It’s a little less whimsical and more sophisticated.

Quote from the Seattle Times.

The new logo is part of a larger re-brand with television advertising by Martin Agency. Personally I like the new logo. I’ve seen commentary about it being boring and maybe they are losing something by getting rid of the cartoon style, but I think it looks quite elegant. I’m not sure I fully understand the new tagline but that’s another story.

What do you think of the new logo? Is the new sophisticated look an improvement or has character been lost?