Surinam Airways

It is not quite clear when the logo of Surinam Airways was introduced, let alone who designed it (please chime in if you have any insights), but chances are it coincided with the appointment of the carrier as the national airline of the Republic of Suriname, on the occasion of the country’s independence from The Netherlands in 1975.

On November 2nd, 1975 the proud free bird of Surinam Airways roared into the sky, using a leased KLM DC-8/63 in Surinam Airways bright colors and completely manned by SLM crew Surinam proved itself able to stand on its own feet in the aviation field. — SLM

The typeface is Cut-In Bold, used in all caps. Designed by Maurice Schlesinger at his Sydney-based studio Graphic Concept in the late 1960s or early 1970s, Cut-In was produced as dry-transfer type by Letraset. It came in two weights, featuring lots of alternates — note how the first ‘S’ in the logo is different from the second. Unfortunately, Cut-In didn’t make the transition to digital. Schlesinger himself created a digital reinterpretation as Bauhaus Rounded, but that happened only in 2011, years after Letraset sheets went out of fashion, and it wasn’t explicitly marketed as a revival of Cut-In. To make things worse, the local publisher he went with, Font Factory, vanished from the scene soon after. Others have created unauthorized digitizations and made them freely available, but these cover the lighter Medium weight only, and don’t include the many original alternates.

The classic logo from the Letraset days is still in use today. However, as Cut-In Bold is unavailable, Surinam Airways had to emulate the style for additional applications by using another rounded sans serif. The website features a version of VAG Rounded. The logo of its subsidiary Surair AirCargo Services uses Arial Rounded with a thrown-in “lazy S”, painfully acknowledging the lost brand value of Cut-In.