Heathrow Express
Reclaiming purple. Reinstating pride. Redefining premium.
The Context
In 2024, we worked with Heathrow Express to launch a refreshed, premium brand expression. The project was an opportunity to reinforce Heathrow Express’s unique value proposition and evolve its role within the wider Heathrow brand ecosystem.
From a customer perspective, expectations of the Heathrow journey are shaped by one of the world’s most recognisable airport brands. Heathrow Express plays a critical role within that experience, providing a direct, premium connection between Central London and Heathrow that reflects the airport’s global reputation for scale, efficiency and international travel.
As the fastest way to travel between Central London and Heathrow, Heathrow Express is designed specifically around the needs of the flying traveller, delivering speed, ease and reassurance from the very start of the journey.
A series of photos with models posing as a family, highlighting the comfort and features of the Heathrow Express service.
Since 1998, Heathrow Express has welcomed over 100 million passengers to enjoy their 15-minute, every 15-minutes direct service. They were the first train company to launch eTickets, as well as a fully functioning ticket app, allowing flyers to travel to their destinations with ease and efficiency.
And they made London Paddington the first railway station in the UK to include Flight Information Display Screens for added convenience.
The Opportunity
The opportunity was not to reinvent Heathrow Express, but to reassert what it has always done best.
By reinstilling pride in its heritage and sharpening its premium credentials, the brand could confidently express its role as the only dedicated rail service designed around the needs of air travellers. A service built to remove friction, enhance time and deliver reassurance at every stage of the journey.
Elevating Brand Identity
Starting with the role of purple. Heathrow Express has always owned purple as a symbol of premium travel and a key signifier within the Heathrow brand world. Rather than moving away from this heritage, the decision was made to confidently reclaim and energise it.
Not only would Heathrow Express Purple become more energised, but it would expand to become a spectrum of purples all built around the core purple at the heart of any Heathrow brand experience, culminating in a set of dynamic purple gradients that would pulse across every brand touchpoint.
The design principle to ‘elevate’ also informed our approach to typography. A custom typeface, called HEx, enabled extended characters to be embedded within the typeface. Creating greater visual impact for emotive campaign messaging, further bringing to life a more expressive brand built around key service features such a speed, space and seamless travel.
The extended letterforms were designed to work hard in campaign environments. Used across layouts, they visually convey speed and ease, mirroring the smooth, uninterrupted nature of the Heathrow Express journey and helping key messages cut through with confidence and clarity.
A simple kit-of-parts that will enable Heathrow Express to be more visually expressive, connect with customers and elevate that seamless travel experience.
Ryan Miller, Design Director at The TeamThe Heathrow Express experience has always been a premium one – it's spacious, comfortable, smooth and speedy. If you need to get to and from the airport directly, you know you can rely on Heathrow Express to get you there on time. Heathrow Express has been doing a lot of things right for a long time, so this was very much a process of re-energizing all that was good and elevating it in a way that was more expressive and emotive for passengers
Redefining a Tone of Voice
It was important for us to understand the brand strategy to help define a set of tone of voice principles to complement a new refreshed presence in market. Insight had driven our strategists to a clear conclusion: Heathrow Express is the only dedicated express rail service designed to provide an elevated travel experience connecting London to Heathrow.
And the key USP of time had driven The Team to define three core experience pillars reflecting that travellers on the Heathrow Express could:
-
Enhance their time with generous luggage space, comfortable seating and the option to travel in Business First, including access to Fast Track.
Reduce their time through dependable services every 15 minutes, with a direct 15-minute journey from Central London to Heathrow.
Secure their time through a fully supported travel experience, guided by a dedicated Heathrow Express team before, during and after the journey. Providing reassurance, clarity and assistance at every stage of travel.
- Heathrow Express ultimately was and is an experience, rather than a means to an end. Driven by four core values of efficiency, comfort, convenience and joy, we installed three key tone of voice principles – expressive, approachable and clear. These principles guide all of Heathrow Express’s communications, both internally and externally.
Venetia Taylor, Copywriter at The TeamI worked closely with the designers to understand specific graphic design terminology, and how to express the visual language within my copy. With our mission and audience front of mind, my aim as a copywriter was to be engaging, concise and impactful, to best communicate the refreshed Heathrow Express brand.
The Result
As a result of a newly formed toolkit, including a clearly defined tone of voice, Heathrow Express was able to create a reaffirmed sense of pride for an established, premium brand.
The refreshed Heathrow Express brand:
- Is more visually expressive, enabling deeper connection with customers and an elevated, seamless travel experience
- Leads with a lively, energetic, fresh and upbeat tone of voice with emphasis on key dynamic words.
We can increase your brand's impact
We are The Team of experts.
During our forty years of doing what we love, we’ve developed brands for The Beatles and the NHS and looked after employees at BP and Heathrow, to name just a few.
When you work with us, our consultants, strategists, writers, designers and project managers become a part of your team.
We create trust and deliver exceptional results, taking your brand to new levels of success.
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