British low-cost airline easyJet was established in 1995 as the first company in what would later become the easyGroup conglomerate. Right from the start, the visual identity was based on the color orange and chubby Cooper Black, making it a perfect candidate for our tag typeface plus color equals brand. The brand manual defines it as:
(a) white lettering on an orange background (Pantone® 021c on glossy print materials; on other surfaces the nearest practicable equivalent) and
(b) in Cooper Black font (not bold, italics, outline nor underlined) the word “easy” in lower case followed (without space) by another word, only the initial letter of which is capitalised
For the first few years, the jets’ fuselages displayed the booking phone number in Cooper Black’s gently ranging oldstyle numerals. In 1998, when online bookings became more popular, the numbers were replaced with the web address, with “.com” set in Futura.
The manual acknowledges that “the Cooper Black font has played an important part in building the ‘easy’ brand. Its bold, confident and distinct appearance has made it recognisable and associated with ’easy’. Its soft friendly curves have given a warm personality to the ‘easy’ businesses.” Unlike in the early days, Cooper Black nowadays is only to be used for the business names. The business names should always appear in Cooper Black, though, even in body text.