Bringing an airline livery design to life.
When Momentum Solutions asked us to reimagine the branding across all of their divisions, one of the most exciting parts of the project was creating the new airline livery design for Momentum Air Express, their regional cargo carrier. Unlike branding that lives on a page or screen, an aircraft livery becomes a moving billboard—flying at 25,000 feet, parked on busy tarmacs, and photographed from countless angles. It had to stand out, stay true to the company’s new aviation branding system, and remain practical for application on real aircraft.
This is how we approached the challenge.
Designing within a larger brand design system.
The livery was not an isolated exercise—it was part of a comprehensive aviation branding project for Momentum Solutions and all its divisions. That meant Momentum Air Express needed a look that was bold and distinctive, but also consistent with the larger Momentum family. A strong airline livery doesn’t just decorate an airplane—it extends the identity of the brand into the physical world, where scale, visibility, and safety come into play in unique ways.
Exploring design options.
We began by creating a series of cargo airline livery design options that drew from the new Momentum design system. To keep the process precise, we used technical drawings and to-scale wireframes of each aircraft type, ensuring the concepts would hold up once applied to real fuselages.
The aircraft in focus:
- Beechcraft 1900D, modified for cargo use
- Cessna 208 Grand Caravan, another workhorse of regional cargo operations
Both aircraft posed their own design challenges. Cargo planes don’t have the passenger windows that designers often use as alignment guides, so the graphics had to create balance and flow across clean fuselages.
Client collaboration.
From there, we presented three distinct livery concepts to the Momentum Solutions team. Their feedback was invaluable: they chose the concept that best expressed their brand while suggesting minor refinements around safety and visibility.
Visibility is especially crucial in airline livery design. Aircraft markings need to comply with regulatory standards and stand out in all weather conditions. For Momentum Air Express, that meant ensuring the design was bold enough to be instantly recognizable, but not so complex that it became impractical to apply or maintain.
Finalizing and rendering the livery design.
After revisions and approvals, we moved into final production. This stage included:
3D models rendered with the chosen livery, giving the Momentum team a realistic view of how the planes would look in operation.
Technical specifications and annotated wireframes, which were then handed off to the teams responsible for applying the livery to each aircraft.
These final deliverables bridged the gap between aviation branding design and execution, ensuring the bold new identity we created could be faithfully reproduced in the real world.
What makes a good airline livery?
Designing a livery is unlike designing a brochure or a logo. A great airline livery needs to:
- Be instantly recognizable at a distance or in motion.
- Work across different aircraft types and scales.
- Balance creativity with practicality, keeping in mind paint application, maintenance, and safety regulations.
- Reinforce the brand identity, so it feels like part of a cohesive system, not an afterthought.
Momentum Air Express’s new look achieved all of these goals—bringing consistency to Momentum Solutions’ wider brand while creating a striking presence for its cargo fleet.
The end result
You can view more of our aviation branding work, including the Momentum Air Express livery, here:
Momentum Solutions Aviation Branding
………………….
Strano + Pettigrew Design Associates is an award-winning branding and design agency based in Toronto Canada serving clients nationally and abroad. For new business enquiries contact us at: studio@stranoandpettigrew.com