Tyler Thompson was frustrated with the way that Delta issued boarding passes. Tyler notes, “It was like someone put on a blindfold, drank a fifth of whiskey, spun around 100 times, got kicked in the face by a mule (the person who designed this definitely has a mule living with them inside their house) and then just started puking numbers and letters onto the boarding pass at random (yes, I realize that a human didn’t lay this out, if a human had, judging by the train-wreck of design, they would have surely used papyrus). There was nothing given size or color importance over anything else, it was a mess.”
Tyler decided to start working on a new layout for the Delta boarding pass. You can check out all of his thoughts on how he went through a variety of iterations before arriving at his final design and layout.
A number of designers provided their attempts at new boarding passes for a variety of other airlines.
After nearly 20 years in the business, it’s amazing how many times things are done the way they are done because that’s how they are done. Only until a person like Tyler (and the others) create better ways do we clearly see how much better things can be done. It would take Delta a spot of time to change the way their boarding passes look to make them so much more rich and practical. Will Delta reply to Tyler? Our bags will probably arrive on the luggage carousel first. Helmut Granda takes a look into what it would actually take to change the Delta boarding pass.
I like Yoni De Beule‘s Delta revision the best followed by Matt Davey‘s Germanwings redesign.