Delft Blue

KLM’s new safety video – made of Delft

KLM making of inflight safety Film 1

Given the wacky one-upmanship airlines are into these days with their safety videos, it’s refreshing to see one airline resort to a cool use of art and animation.

KLM called on the Delft Blue artists to help make a new safety video that will be shown on intercontinental flights starting November 1.

To make the film the safety instructions were translated into a series of Delft Blue-style illustrations, which were sent to a digital animator, who turned them into the series of images that would end up in the animated video. Those images were painted onto more than a thousand Delft Blue tiles and photographed using the stop the stop-motion technique to create the video.

This short film shows that process.

KLM has a long history with the Delft Blue design. Since 1952 the airline has been giving out miniature Delftware houses to World Business Class passengers on intercontinental flights.

The Delft Blue miniature houses are copies of real houses from throughout the Netherlands and the collection now includes 96 models.

KLM HOUSES

Souvenir Sunday: Get tiled

It’s Souvenir Sunday here at StuckatTheAirport.com – a day to look at fun, inexpensive and, ideally, offbeat souvenirs from airports.

This week’s souvenir isn’t something you can take home from the airport, but something you might be able to put on an airplane: your face.

 

As part of KLM’s Facebook-based “Tile and Inspire” campaign, you have until May 25, 2011 to upload your portrait and a short message onto a themed, traditional Delft Blue tile. The airline will then choose about 4,000 of the tiles and apply them to the body of a KLM Boeing 777-200 that will begin flying in June.

Ready to tile yourself? You can create a personal Delft Blue Tile on KLM’s Facebook page or at www.tileyourself.com. The airline is inviting inspirational messages in Chinese, Dutch, English, German, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, French and Spanish.