An in-depth overview of the Korean Air livery

I’ve always said that less is more when it comes to airline livery design. The two most recent Korean Air liveries are perfect examples of how to create a sleek and sophisticated airline color scheme with relatively simple design elements:

• The 2025 Blue and White livery contains just two colors. It features metallic paint (which is stunning in bright sunlight) and curved elements to give it a unique character. At least compared to other Eastern Asian airlines.
• The 1984 Powder Blue livery consisted of four colors, and was considered to be a bold design for the time. Remember – the mid-1980s was all about neon and bright colors. Not pastels.

Blue and White livery: 2025-present

Korean Air’s new livery (launched on March 11, 2025) was significant. Not because of how complex it was, but because of how simple and monochromatic the overall design had become.

You could almost hear heads exploding worldwide (especially in Korea – and the KLM headquarters in Amsterdam) when the first leaked images of this livery appeared online.

• The color palette was reduced from four colors to two (blue and white – though if you want to get technical, there are two shades of blue). Red and silver were completely eliminated.
• The new primary blue color is metallic – a first for Korean Air.
• The horizontal silver stripe dividing the blue and the white was eliminated.
• The horizontal division between the blue top and the white bottom remains, but that line is now curved at both ends (down at the nose and up on the tail section). Very similar to the new KLM livery.
• Instead of the Main titles spelling out “Korean Air”, it’s now just “Korean”.
• The Taegeuk (Yin Yang) symbol on the vertical stabilizer remains, but has become completely monochromatic.

The titles

An all new (and completely custom) typeface was created for the Korean Air titles. Unlike the previous version, it’s a modern san serif design with no hints of Korean-specific culture.

Switching from “Korean Air” to “Korean” allowed the designers to increase the size of the titles when applied to the aircraft. Although the space that the titles take up on the fuselage remains the same(ish) as the previous version, the elimination of “Air” makes “Korean” more pronounced.

The color palette

Who cares if red is one of the primary colors of the South Korean flag? Obviously not the designers of the new Korean Air livery. The elimination of red from the color palette was every bit as bold as the elimination of yellow from the new Lufthansa livery IHMO. I would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall during the meeting when that decision was made.

There are two main colors for the 2025 Korean Air Blue and White livery: blue and white (duh). There are two different shades of blue though, so it’s technically three colors:

• Metallic Blue: #53AAE2 (R=83, G=70, B=226)
• Underbelly / Engines: #FFFFFF (R=255, G=255, B=255)
• Titles and Logo: #051766 (R=5, G=23, B=102)

Powder Blue livery: 1984-2025

There were two major trends in airline livery design when the Powder Blue Korean Air livery was unveiled on March 1, 1984:

1. Most airlines were moving towards “Euro White” designs (predominantly white liveries).
2. Some airlines were just starting to embrace swoopy arcs and curves (as you can see in the Qantas livery and Emirates livery of the time).

The Korean Air designers considered neither of those things and stuck with a modern version of the tried-and-true “cheatline” style. Cheatlines were all the rage in the 1970s and 80s. For the youngsters who may not know: cheatlines consisted of linear stripes running down the length of the fuselage.

This version of the livery was essentially a cheatline style with a modern twist. Instead of thin pinstripes, the horizontal design elements were thick and substantial. It looked a lot like the Qatar Airways livery (which is a compliment), and I consider it to be a beautiful evolution of a very traditional airline livery style at the time.

The titles

The typeface used for the Korean Air titles on the forward section of the fuselage was completely custom. It’s a mix of old-style Korean lettering combined with modern typography standards. It was bold, extremely easy to read, and uniquely Korean.

Even though I appreciate how much time and effort they put into making it a traditionally Korean design element, I think there’s a bit of a mismatch between the old world Korean Air typeface and the modern block elements on the rest of the livery. It’s not bad though.

In comparison, Asiana Airlines (the other South Korean airline) went the easy route and used Helvetica instead.

Going even further, they wasted no opportunity in using the Taegeuk symbol – the same one found on the flag of South Korea – for the “O”.

The titles are very predominantly placed on all aircraft types, which technically classifies them as billboard titles (I guess). Billboard title styles weren’t all that common yet, so they were definitely leading the way (and/or copying the Pan Am livery).

The color palette

To me, the most interesting part about the 1984 Korean Air livery is the color palette. Baby blue and silver weren’t exactly the flag colors of South Korea, but they plowed forward with it anyway. It was an extremely bold (and daring) choice, but over time, these colors defined Korean Air. I would also argue that they helped to define them as the colors of South Korea as a whole as well.

There were four main colors for the Korean Air Powder Blue livery (light blue, dark blue, silver, and white). The logo mark contained four colors (red, blue, white, and silver), but only two are unique:

• Blue: #71CBEB (R=113, G=203, B=235)
• Underbelly / Engines: #FFFFFF (R=255, G=255, B=255)
• Titles: #1C4E9D (R=28, G=78, B=157)
• Silver: #C6C6C6 (R=198, G=198, B=198)
• Logo Red: #EC172C (R=236, G=23, B=44)
• Logo Blue #1C4E9D (R=28, G=78, B=157)

One of the most interesting things about this color palette is the fact that they chose not to use the color red anywhere in the base livery design. Red is a predominant color in the South Korean flag, so I admire the restraint it took to leave it out. If it were me, I wouldn’t have been able to resist adding a few red accents here and there.

The biggest problem with this color palette? Most of the aircraft that wore it ended up faded and chalky looking. Powdery even. Pun intended.