El Al’s New Onboard Food Experience

Creative Agency: LYLY.Design
Art and research: Dana Ben Shalom
Design managing: Idan Noyberg
Lead visual designer: Neatly Reshef
Photography: Assaf Ambram
Project Type: Produced, Commercial Work
Client: ELAL airline
Location: Israel
Packaging Contents: Airline food
Packaging Substrate / Materials: Paper, plastic foil, aluminum foil

Until this design challenge was assigned to lyly.design, El Al’s aircraft’s food appearance and general design concept hasn’t changed for a long while. This refreshing design opportunity hit the traditional Israeli airline with the purchase of its new Dreamliner fleet and the rebranding that followed, introducing new interior design, new “Premium” class and new colors and textures to the livery of the aircraft’s.

“Designing El Al’s onboard food experience was a fascinating challenge for us. We knew the importance of El Al’s core Israeli values of locality, homely environment and innovation, and sought out to rethink them and find a way to introduce contemporary design values of food appeal, livery environment and storytelling to the customer’s experience. We also had to take into account the systematic structure of the 3 classes (Economy, Premium and Business) their different characteristics and appearance both physically and mentally, and blend in with the new interior design of the dreamliner airplanes designed by the fabiolous PG studio”

lyly.design based this project on the concept of Israeli landscapes, from which they synthesised the aesthetics of the country’s natural resources, it’s colors, textures and moods.

“As a part of the design research process, in order to study the essence of Israeli landscapes and try to catch the natural “moods” of them, we collected hundreds of visuals, starting from bird’s view pictures of different parts of Israel, to geology books, israeli archeology archives and even instagram hashtags. We then created several possible conceptual and aesthetic divisions for the 3 classes on the airplane.”

The final design interpretation is expressed through the use of subtle local textures of water, earth and fossils, in combination with color gradients that reference to different time periods throughout the day.

“For the economy department we chose ‘minerals’ as a leading element, used the brand’s blue palette and added hints of vibrant colors for a young and fresh feel. For the new Premium class we chose ‘earth’ as the leading element and introduced the new tanned browns palette that added to the new cabin, which created a warm, sophisticated atmosphere to the new graphic. Last but not least, ‘fossil’ is the timeless element we used for the luxury business class, mixed in with a quiet, formal palette of light greys and white.”

The logistic outlines for this kind of project are extremely complex. On top of the challenge to visually individualize each department and yet keep a united brand character in whole, there is a large variety of items that need to be taken into account such as paper cups, wine list, cutlery, sauce foil, napkins, and so on.

“And as to the complicated logistics of different meal types, we used the color gradients in each department as a tool to distinguish breakfast from dinner, morning from dawn, in an intelligent visual way.”

What’s Unique?
The logistic outlines for this kind of project are extremely complex. On top of the challenge to visually individualize each department and yet keep a united brand character in whole, there is a large variety of items that need to be taken into account such as paper cups, wine list, cutlery, sauce foil, napkins, and so on.