Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport is a world in motion. Every month, around six million people pass through its halls, served by 94 airlines connecting the Netherlands to the world.
Following a sharp rise in post-pandemic traffic, Schiphol turned its attention to improving the experience of every passenger moving through the airport. The overarching goal was to bring calm and coherence back to one of Europe’s busiest crossroads.
As part of a wider investment programme – modernising infrastructure, improving staff facilities, and making the airport more sustainable – Schiphol also set out to redefine its identity. The ambition was as much cultural as operational.
The team wanted to lift service quality, restore pride, and move back into Europe’s top three busiest airports – it currently sits fourth, behind London Heathrow, Istanbul Airport and Paris Charles de Gaulle.
Central to that vision was the new identity, crafted by Amsterdam-based design studio Thonik.
Thonik’s new identity for Schiphol Airport
“We saw the brand as a compass – a way to bring back quality, ease and clarity to the travel experience,” says Sander Hengeveld, head of brand at Schiphol. “Schiphol was full of visual noise, and the existing identity simply wasn’t distinctive enough.”
Beyond recognition and clarity, the identity needed an emotional centre, something that could connect the airport’s many audiences under a single idea.
Schiphol wanted the brand to express care, belonging, and pride, not just operational efficiency. That search led the team to a simple brand idea – “a home for world travellers.”
While the brand needed to carry this emotional through-line, it also had to honour Schiphol’s storied history.
To imagine the airport’s future, Thonik looked back to its past, specifically 1967, when a landmark new terminal building opened at Schiphol.
The identity was crafted by Thonik, while the advertising campaign was led by Ace Amsterdam
At the time, the architects, interior designers, and graphic designers worked together to create a space centred on the traveller.
When the team studied their work, a singular lesson emerged – good design can make complex systems feel effortless. Thonik’s challenge was to capture that sense of ease in a visual system – distinctive enough to stand out, but quiet enough to bring calm.
“If you want to be distinctive, the instinct is to be loud and bold,” says Thomas Widdershoven, Thonik co-founder and creative director. “But airports are already full of loud voices – airlines, shops, advertisements. We felt that if we spoke more quietly, the overall tone might soften, and people would actually hear us more clearly.
“It’s an unorthodox approach in such a competitive space, but that quietness became our strength.”
In response to the visual clutter so often synonymous with airports, Thonik crafted a pared-back identity. At its heart sits ‘AMS’ – Schiphol’s IATA code – held within a circle and paired with the Schiphol wordmark.
Thonik’s wordmark for Schiphol Airport
“We wanted AMS to feel like the icon – a symbol of place and movement – but Schiphol needed to remain the name people connected with. That balance was crucial,” says Nikki Gonnissen, Thonik’s co-founder and director.
The two work together to express both global reach and national pride.
The circle that holds ‘AMS’ is deliberately oversized – expansive rather than enclosed – ensuring it doesn’t read as a literal wayfinding dot or tight badge.
A subtle forward slant on the ‘A’ introduces a sense of motion and gives the overall mark a visual rhythm.
The circle from the logo extends into the wider brand world, evolving into ripples or a single guiding line, and at times expanding into a soft pulse of concentric rings.
The circle from the logo transitions to ripples
These are the only graphic gestures Thonik allows in the identity, reinforcing the brand’s quiet confidence.
Used sparingly, the concentric circles become some of the identity’s most expressive moments. At the arrival gates, they appear as a gentle embrace – a visual metaphor for reunion and return.
“At the arrival gates, we chose not to use the logo at all,” says Widdershoven. “You only see the circles and the tagline – it carries the language of the identity without repeating the brand. There are enough logos in the world. For us, it was about bringing warmth to a moment of emotion, not pushing the identity to sell itself again.”
Despite its restraint, the identity leaves room for expression. “There are moments when you can turn the volume up – when the surroundings are quieter, the brand can speak a little louder,” says Hengeveld.
The circular graphic at the arrival gate
“But its role is always to support, not overwhelm. Less is more was one of our core principles.”
As the team began integrating the logo with Schiphol’s wayfinding system, they realised they needed a typeface that could work seamlessly across every touchpoint – and it didn’t yet exist.
Frutiger, the typeface previously used for wayfinding, was admired for its clarity and legibility, with open terminals and generous counters. But it also felt cold, too functional to carry the warmth of Schiphol’s new promise – a home for world travellers.
To bridge that gap, Thonik partnered with type foundry Bold Monday to create Royal Schiphol Group Variable, a custom sans serif that could speak fluently across both commercial and informational contexts.
Interestingly, the typeface’s variability wasn’t planned and was rather a product of the process. When the typeface was handed over to Ace Amsterdam – the team behind Schiphol’s campaigns and the tagline ‘Today is the day’ – they condensed the tracking to create a warmer, more emotive tone for advertising.
RSG Variable works across wayfinding and advertising
That discovery revealed the typeface’s true flexibility – a wider version for clarity in wayfinding, and a denser one for lifestyle-led comms. What began as a small “rule break” soon became a new design principle.
“The Dutch are very good at breaking rules,” laughs Gonnissen. “Rules are there to break, and then we cook them up again.”
The designers hope that over time, the identity will help shift perceptions of the airport – that Schiphol isn’t just a gateway, but a place that feels good to be in.
“A few years from now, we want people to associate Schiphol with well-being, a place that’s clear, calm, and feels like home,” says Widdershoven.
“Yes, we want to be back in Europe’s top three airports, but more importantly, we want to get there by making travel feel human again.”
The identity and Ace Amsterdam’s campaign seen outside the airport
The circle from the logo turns into guiding lines in wayfinding and informational text
The new identity and campaign as seen at the airport