Beyond an Aircraft Interior Designer: Designworks Brings Branding Agency Services to Starlux Airlines
The Starlux brand starts not with a logo, but with a feeling.
Upon boarding the STARLUX A350, passengers are greeted with a digital illustration of an ever-growing bouquet of flowers. Created through an animated light sequence, the bouquet is constantly growing, moving and alive — a symbol of vitality and wellness, and a genuine moment of hospitality that welcomes passengers into the cabin experience.
Inspired by the theme “elegant nature,” subtle patterns of bamboo, rain droplets and leaves can be seen throughout the cabin interior. Juxtaposing natural elements with warm metallic reflections creates a sense of calm, comfort and elegance.
For STARLUX, the first Taiwanese airline to offer First Class seating, we designed a cabin space based on five core design principles to make passengers feel at home, no matter what class they’re traveling in:
- Comfort: Feeling at ease with your surroundings
- Privacy: The ability to choose when and how you disconnect and reflect
- Security: A sense of safety
- Ownership: Having a sense of control over space and place
- Belonging: Feeling part of a group of people who accept you, in places that reflect you
First Class Suite: An unparalleled luxury experience through space, comfort, privacy and detail. Rich quilted soft surfaces envelopes the passenger in total privacy, a combination of tonal hues of rose gold with black and gray leather with metallic rose gold details creating sophisticated highlights and depth are used throughout the suite to create a feeling of calm, warmth, luxury and protection. The suite encompasses features for the most discerning of passengers from a luxurious vanity to a personal beverage cabinet and wardrobe.
Business Class Suite: A space to relax after a busy day or to conduct business in your own privacy and comfort. Business class suite is composed of dark gray, warm brown, and champaign tones. Metallic champaign colored detail frames the space while the rich gray tones create a sense of protection and calm. The combination of technical wool textile, leather and suede textures creates rich and warm tactility to the space. The residential style accent light and dark wood finishes adds a sense of hospitality and home feel while being professional for the business traveler’s needs.
Premium Economy Seat: Passengers are welcomed with warm and uplifting feel. The subtle color combinations of warm brown and gray tones are at the same time calming and comforting but also expressive, creating a very specific atmosphere of relaxed elegance to the whole premium economy cabin. The two tone seat cover emphasizes the generous backrest while grounding the space with darker tones in the lower parts and creating an uplift with lighter tones in the upper parts.
Economy Seat: Lightest of the cabins the economy class welcomes passengers with fresh warmth. Crisp white seat shells are contrasted with warm browns and calming grays creating an atmosphere of space and calm.
Home In The Air, An Evolution
The A350 cabin features four distinct seating classes including the all-new First Class suite. However, STARLUX airlines has set a precedent by offering a comfortable and premium experience not only to those who can pay the most, but to all its passengers. To tie the entire home-like cabin experience together, we created a theme called “Glisten,” an evolution of our “Pure Tea” and “Sanctuary” themes used in the A321 and A330, with deeper, richer and even more luxurious finishes.
The myriad material textures used in the cabin are meant to evoke a sense of walking into a home, where you are greeted by an array of haptic experiences in the form of quilted panels, woven fabric seats, leather headrests and rose gold embellishments.
“Comfort is at the center of everything.”
Nature-Inspired
It can be easy to get lost in the typical microcosm of an airplane interior with few references to our outside environment, but the A350 interior is infused with aesthetic references to the natural world, a reminder of our organic surroundings that promote a peace of mind associated with a connection to nature. Even the ambient cabin lighting is centered around mother nature’s seasons, featuring three lighting modes — ‘Chinese New Year,’ ‘White Christmas’ and ‘Moon Festival.’
“The color themes are characterized by an earth-neutral palette that creates a sense of warm, natural luxury.”
Global Collaboration
STARLUX serves a global audience with a local flavor. To make sure the A350 cabin experience stayed true to its roots, we employed our global design team. Designworks Shanghai studio took the lead, bringing regional authenticity to the interior space. While Designworks Los Angeles collaborated to represent the global passenger perspective.
The end result is luxurious, with a touch of whimsy.
Visit STARLUX Airlines for more about the A350 cabin experience
