Air North, Yukon’s Airline

For more than 15 years, we were the agency of record for Air North, Yukon’s Airline. Our goal, always, was to deliver work that felt on par with that of a much larger airline with a much bigger budget and a much bigger agency supporting it. Few agencies ever have the chance to shape so many facets of a company’s public image and we’re proud of the role we played for our hometown airline.

This showcase highlights some of our creations up to late 2024, when we passed the brand and design reins to Air North’s own team. This barely scratches the surface of what we produced over that 15-year span.

This image features three Air North aircraft stacked vertically. At the top, smallest, is the oldest version of the Air North livery, with an all-white fuselage and engines and the now iconic orange tail (before this one jet had a white tail and another had a blue tail, just as they were when Air North bought them used). In the middle is the revised livery from 2014, with brings orange on to the fuselage and engines to tie it all together and make it more dynamic. The typography is refined. The last is the newest version of the livery, which adds a dark orange caribou head to the tail, large Air North print, and just looks way cooler. Obviously we like it, but hopefully others agree it's been a good evolution.

Design Station created the 2014 and 2024 evolutions of the Air North, Yukon’s Airline jet fleet livery—bringing cleaner typography, more orange, and—most recently—a caribou to the tail.

The most visible part of an airline’s brand is its aircraft. Air North’s orange tail, introduced in 2007 by its original agency Inkspirationz, whose owner hand-painted the airline’s DC-3s in the 1980s, was an element we were not going to transform. Instead, our approach was to extend the orange with an elegant swoop on to the fuselage, add orange to the engines, and simplify the typography with “Yukon’s Airline”, the URL, and the aircraft registration in the corporate typeface.

The next major change came in 2024 with the arrival of two Boeing 737-800s. Building on earlier livery updates, “Air North” was scaled up, the URL dropped from the engines, and two tributes to the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation—49% owners of the airline—were added. Below the cockpit windows appears the Gwich’in phrase “Jidii nakhwats’oo gogwijiłcheii nakhwadrii ts’at tr’agwanah’in” (“Vision the heart sees”), and the midnight sun orange tail now features a caribou, a centuries-old symbol of survival, pride, and strength for the Vuntut Gwitchin.

This is a painterly style piece of art (it's illustrated vector art that was given a treatment to make it look painted on canvas) of a northern landscape, similar to what you'd find between Old Crow and Inuvik—with the edge of mountain ridge leading to land filled with small lakes and relatively rolling terrain. Climbing up a ridge above a river is a long line of caribou, with the leading caribou blending into the tail of an Air North aircraft—connecting the land, the caribou, and the airline's updated livery.

Caribou migration artwork created for the launch of the airline’s Boeing 737-800s and the introduction of the updated jet livery.

A photograph of an ATR 42 turboprop taxiing for departure on a clear fall day. The aircraft itself features an orange tail with a swoop descending from the tail and rising to a peak along the mid-fuselage, with orange notches on the engines. Just aft of the cockpit windows is an illustration of a caribou head, with the words 'Air North Cargo' behind it. The tail features 'Yukon' in stylized type.

We created the liveries for the ATR 42 turboprops, including this one. It includes the words "Gwich’in tr’iinlii, diit’aii goonlii" under the cockpit windows, Gwich’in for “We are Gwich’in, we are strong.” Photo courtesy of Simon Blakesley Photography.

On the left side of this photo illustration we can see the 2012/13 scarf, which features a dark solid blue background with slightly lighter blue brushstroke like effects, over which is an even lighter blue curving pattern. Lastly, there's orange dots moving in an orderly line. It looked nice, we did a good job, but its time had run its course and the newer one looks a bit more grown-up, refined, and bolder with very similar colours (obviously using brand blue and orange) in much thicker wavy stripes.

Design Station created the 2012-era scarf and tie design for Air North’s flight attendant uniforms, and developed a refreshed look in 2024 that was launched in early 2025.

In 2012, Air North refreshed its jet flight attendant uniforms and asked us to create a scarf pattern to replace the black ties (gold for in-charge attendants). The result was a flowing, organic design in three shades of blue, with the in-charge version adding orange dots to evoke the midnight sun crossing the sky.

In 2024, work began on a new scarf and tie pattern—a nod to Air North’s past and an Inkspirationz design inspired by artist Ted Harrison. The updated look features three shades of blue divided by silver, with a bold orange band. The silver reflects the Yukon’s mining history, the orange the midnight sun, and the blues the sky, rivers, lakes, and glaciers.

Safety cards! On the left side are the front and back panels of the Boeing 737-800 safety card, while on the right side are the inside panels of the ATR 42 turboprop safety card. They're an illustrated style, and damn cool even though they're for a serious purpose. We're very proud of these.

We developed the safety cards for Air North’s Boeing 737-400, -500, -800 and ATR-42 turboprops. These had to be reviewed by Transport Canada and were praised by their team for the clarity and approach.

This image is features four rows, with the top row showing a line of vertical Instagram-story style graphics—mostly illustrations, though there are a few images. Below those are three rows of horizontal-style Facebook graphics, again with a mixture of artwork and photography.

Some samples of social media graphics from 2023 and 2024. These represent less than 10% of what we made for social channels in that time.

A graphic featuring three badge or patch-style pieces of artwork. The first and third were used as stickers, while the middle was actually used as an embroidered patch. The first is a top-down view of an Air North jet flying along in a shape that's a bit like a delta, with 1977—the year Air North was founded—flanking the tail area. The patch features a jet flying out of a globe with the Yukon highlighted in orange, like a rocket flying off into space. The third features an airplane window shape with the Eiffel Tower below some aurora, while the Air North tail (featuring Yukon and a caribou) slightly bisects part of the image and is evoking an aircraft flying off to the right.

Some of the fun badge-style artwork created for an anniversary, employee clothing, and an event in Paris.

This is a combination of artwork and photography to show a series of animals looking out of an Air North aircraft (we can just see the edge of the Air North lettering above and Airline below the windows), and we can see into the plane. The first window looks like it's peering into an empty seat. The second features a bird, the third features a dog with its ears flying outwards as though the window is open and it's peering out. It's also wearing goggles. Behind it is seated a bored cat that's yawning, with a very fluffy bunny watching the world go by from the last window.

A quirky bit of artwork used to announce some changes to the Pets and Jets policy.

This graphic features five Instagram story style images, all of which are some photoshop nonsense that we loved making. The first features Joe Sparling as a barista with arm tattoos promoting Joe's, as though Air North was opening a chain of cafés (which they kind of now have, with the Black Wolf Bistro). The second is for Tall Tail Charters, featuring Neko. The third is a joke about Air North launching a perfume called 'Eau de Cookie No. 737' in a bottle shaped like a cookie with a bite of it. The fourth is a joke about Air North using a dog team to move its aircraft to and from the hangar, with Neko hidden in the cockpit. Lastly is a UFO with an Air North style orange 'Yukon' tail, with Neko and Joe more or less invisible (but now you know they're there) in the glass bubble of the UFO.

Design Station was responsible for the April Fools jokes in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024. We regret any inconvenience these may have caused. Neko, Design Station’s CEO, appears in three of these graphics.

Screenshots from the Air North getaways site. On the left side is how the site appears on desktop or tablet, showing a snippet of the homepage and its featured offer. On the right side is a screenshot showing the mobile version of the Getaways page, where you can see a toolbar button to filter the offers and a card featuring one of the getaway packages.

Air North Getaways website, developed by Design Station.

A photo of a paper coffee cup on an airplane table tray. The coffee cup has a rough sketch on it that forms an airplane window that has a jet flying out of it. In the centre is the Air North logo with the text 'The best brew with the best view.'

This was just a quick evening sketch that was approved for use without any adjustment—and was regularly photographed and shared by passengers on Instagram. Photo courtesy of Simon Blakesley Photography.

A photo where we see the tail of one of Air North's Boeing 737-800s, with Yukon and a watermark style caribou head on the orange tail. Pulling up beside the rear door is a catering truck, that features a vinyl wrap print on it of the Air North tail, and aurora background, and the words 'The official cookie carrier.'

Catering truck vinyl wrap design and message by Design Station. Photo courtesy of Simon Blakesley Photography.

A close-up view of a decal on a freezer window. Inside, slightly obscured by condensation, are rows of amazing Air North Flight Kitchen cheesecakes. The decal on the window is of an airplane window with the text 'Yukon's own cheesecake is in sight.'

When Chef Michael Bock and his team launched The Flight Kitchen line of cheesecakes and frozen entrées, we provided the branding and marketing support—including packaging design. Photo courtesy of Simon Blakesley Photography.

Four poster images. On the left is a Valentine's Day cheesecake, followed by a banana (we weren't sure about that one) and chocolate combination, an absolutely delightful triple berry cheesecake, and some mouth watering Indian meals. We LOVE Indian food. More please.

Some of the posters we created for The Flight Kitchen promotions, all featuring photography by Simon Blakesley.

In all, we created more than a half a terabyte, over 500 gigabytes, of deliverables for Air North. Tens of thousands of ads, posters, luggage tags, forms, regulatory documents, flatsheets, news releases, postcards, packaging, and even a passport just for pets. Perhaps we’ll have to make a book of it all one day, even if just for ourselves.

An Air North Boeing 737-500 takes off on a bright and sunny day, soon to speed well above and beyond the clouds.

C-GANU, the first jet to carry our 2014 livery, departs on its first revenue flight for the company into a bright sky full of possibility. Photo by Christopher Griffiths.