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Alaska Airlines COVID Response


Role:
Art Director

Tools:
Illustrator + After Effects + Sketch

The Opportunity

I was working at the agency, Rauxa for a short while when the dreaded COVID outbreak started and shook up all of our worlds. I don’t need to remind anyone of how difficult that shift was. The main client that I was on at the time, was Alaska Airlines and our primary focus was email and a bit of social. Having our partner in the travel industry during this time, our team recognized the major impact that they were about to go through and we wanted to be proactive in trying to help in any way that we could. It meant a few late nights and some long stretches of work, but the potential reward of helping a partner in a tough time was a big one.

The Process

Our team got together to work through what we could provide our partner that would add value to their business. It was a tough time and profits weren’t the main goal, but rather helping Alaska Airlines show their customers that they were there for them and safely available for those who did want or need to travel. A big component that we talked about in this phase, was ensuring that we weren’t coming off as insensitive. This was tricky for a lot of brands out there, so we did a little research on what others were saying, analyzing what seemed to come off as genuine versus insensitive. Imagine telling families at the time, “It’s fine, just travel, we still want your business”.

The first thing that we ended up focusing on, were the individuals that still needed to travel, to visit loved ones, for work or whatever the reason may have bene. We needed to make sure that they knew that Alaska had their best interest and was taking every safety precaution that they could (which they were, so why not talk about it?) I was able to create a set of iconography focusing on key points of interest at the time. Allowing Alaska to use them to help explain their protocols on their site, blog, social or wherever they had these types of communications. I also animated these icons to help better demonstrate things like, airflow, HEPA filters and mask use.

The Result

Alaska was very grateful for our assistance at this time, it showed us being proactive and helped them to quickly roll out a set of creative around COVID. They ended using our set of iconography and animations across email, websites, social and print. They soon asked for another set of icons and another after that. I was able to use Illustrator and Adobe After Effects to get these all created quickly. It was equally rewarding to then see my work in airports, on in-flight napkins and their social platforms, but more importantly be part of a team who were able to take initiative and provide value for a big partner of the agency.

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