Kenya Airways Logo

Kenya Airways is a major proprietor of airline services in Kenya. They are the biggest airline and have the most airplanes in the country. This allows them to make voyages all across the continents, and even beyond – into the Southern Europe, America and some countries of Asia.

Meaning and History

Kenyan Airways Ltd. was founded in 1977, not long after the country received its independence from the British Empire. They became Kenya’s chief supplier of aerial travel immediately. After all these years, they are still completely uncontested. It’s reflected in the name, too.

1977 – 2007

The initial logo consisted of an emblem – a red letters structure – and the name – black inscription that said ‘Kenyan Airlines’ (the name back then).

The symbol had a lowercase ‘k’ intertwined with a component that resembles the number ‘7’. This was supposed to look like the both first letters from the name. It largely succeeds, although they had to strip the ‘K’ of its capital form.

The name, for its part, was a collection of ordinary black letters, a little squished from the top, but otherwise completely unremarkable.

2007 – today

In 2007, the country seems to have rebranded to ‘Airways’, which birthed a new logo. The writing changed to a more elegant typeface – the letters became more fluid, soft and not as blocky as before. They also changed to red to match the emblem.

And the emblem was now just a letter ‘K’ inside a peculiar, pleasantly uneven ring (also red). Also, they’d often put the slogan – ‘The Pride of Africa’ in black hand-written letters – right below the right half of the logo proper.

Emblem and Symbol

The encircled ‘K’ letter is used extensively as the brand’s main symbol. They put it everywhere, but most visibly on the tails of their planes. There, they are often forced to switch to white, because the tail itself is painted in the Kenyan national colors (the main one being bright red).