Project: American Express
American Express, or AmEx, is one of the world's largest financial services corporations. The company is well known for its credit cards and Amex cards account for approximately 24% of the total dollar volume of credit card transactions in the US. In Scandinavia, AmEx, together with the SAS airline, offer the SAS Eurobonus credit card. Points gained from every purchase made using the card can be traded for discounts and special offers when buying EuroBonus-trips.
AmEx, along with Stockholm based agency House of Radon, commissioned us to create a set of brand assets along with a new website and touch-application.
The AmEx SAS EuroBonus Icon Set
In order to create visual cohesiveness throughout all communication, ranging from newspaper ads to campaign sites and TV-spots, a clear connecting thought was needed. An icon set turned out to be the ideal toolbox for demonstrating the different offers available through the SAS EuroBonus card, whether on a touch screen or in print.
Three different types of icons were to be drawn; travel related, destinations and merchandise. The icons of these categories are used together, in different combinations, to illustrate the full circle from purchase (merchandise) to trip (travel/destinations).
Inspired by old airport signage and passport stamps, the icons were hand drawn and only polished to a certain extent, in order to retain a crafted human touch.
The full icon set includes around 60 icons and will grow over time as American Express develops its SAS EuroBonus offer.
The motifs range from the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, a dry Martini and a roll of toilet paper to the beloved Cinnamon Bun - the only pastry that has its own day of celebration in Sweden (The Cinnamon Bun Day).
Some of the icons, which are used in American Express' online Travel Calculator, are available in several different grades measuring different habits and conditions of its customers.
The AmEx SAS EuroBonus homepage
The original homepage for the EuroBonus card was designed and developed several years back. Consequently, it was time for a redesign. Based on the feel of the new icon set with the structure of the, more up to date, touch application in mind, a new design for
the homepage was set. Not wanting to move too far away from the old website, AmEx wanted the new site to be Flash-based. However, in order to make future updates easier, we linked all content to an XML-file.
Application for touch screens
AmEx's sales teams, present at every major airport throughout Scandinavia, is a key asset in gaining new customers for the SAS EuroBonus card. As an aid in the sales pitch, a touch application has been developed. The application needed to be updated, not
only to match the new design of the website and campaign material, but also because it was not as dynamic as needed. Therefore, while updating the design we also rebuilt parts of the Flash-based functionality to load data from a more easily managed XML-file.
