Goodbye, Tri-Blade. Hello, Pollock

For decades, the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) has served as the official civilian auxiliary of the United States Air Force. The congressionally chartered, federally supported, non-profit organization has saved a great many lives in its eighty-years, and quietly served as a conduit by which generations young people have proceeded to pilot certification and flying jobs. 

Nationwide, CAP is a major operator of single-engine general aviation aircraft. The agility and utility of such airplanes is well suited to the organization’s search and rescue and disaster relief missions. 

An essential truth of military and paramilitary organizations is that their organizational and operational sophistication grows as a function of the equipment they operate. 

Just as the transition from reciprocating-engined aircraft to F-22 Raptors and B-2 Spirits engendered tremendous change in the USAF’s capability, complexity, and ethos, so the Civil Air Patrol  has been transformed by its adaptation of increasingly capable, general aviation aircraft, modern avionics, and GPS technology.  

In 2004, the Air Force proclaimed its slicker, hipper, 21st Century iteration by modernizing its logo. Not to be outdone by its nuclear-capable counterpart, the Civil Air Patrol’s Board of Governors has voted unanimously to adopt a new logo, which—according to CAP chief of marketing and communications, Randy Bolinger— “ … accomplishes several things and includes some unique benefits.”

The new CAP logo clearly derives of the USAF’s artistic predilections for symmetry, monochromatic austerity, and the use of negative-space. Both symbols do away with literal depictions of well-known elements—such as the Air Force’s historic wings and the CAP’s tri-blade propeller. These iconic elements are represented abstractly, but effectively in the new symbology. 

“While the Air Force beat CAP to the modernization wake-up call by more than two decades, CAP can now benefit from being able to take some visual cues from the Air Force logo to incorporate into our own,” Bolinger said.

“The new CAP logo is clearly in the same Air Force Total Force family, having borrowed inspiration from the wing shape and hiding the legacy shape (the Civilian Defense triangle) in the negative space as the Air Force did with the star and globe. 

“We also added something blue – the logo color itself that closely aligns with the Air Force. In fact, the Air Force and CAP logos nest together quite nicely as if they are, well, partners.”

Purists will take solace in the knowledge that the CAP’s classic tri-blade symbol will live on as an element of the organization’s command emblem. As such it will adorn CAP aircraft, vehicles, and flight suits.

Love it or hate it, branding is big business. The notion that brands must “evolve” is firmly and irrevocably ensconced in the minds of hipsters and talking heads from Wall Street to Michigan Avenue to Sunset Boulevard. Doubters and luddites are encouraged to look upon rebranding’s import and instrumentality through the lens of New Coke. 

FMI: www.gocivilairpatrol.com