Playful Series Reflects on British Airways' Speedy Check-In from City Airport

British Airways Cityflyer have released a new series of tongue-in-cheek outdoor visuals created by Uncommon to demonstrate the speed and ease of flying BA from City Airport. The series adopts a literal re-enactment of this speed through a collection of distorted passport photos using a leaf blower captured by multi-award-winning portrait and fashion photographer Emily Stein.

Today, we expect most things in life to be seamless, from banking to gig tickets, hotel check-ins to food delivery; we want smooth and uncomplicated experiences. Checking-in at City Airport with British Airways takes only 20 minutes from security to boarding.

To celebrate this seamless experience, Uncommon created an out of home series pairing striking blown-away portraits with beautifully tweaked passport details that continue to show the speed and ease of this fast check-in process.

These intricate details include passport numbers being changed to the expression ‘WHEEEE’ as well as iconic passport illustrations altered. We see various figures changing from their usual state to be impacted by a gust of wind from a family holding on to a lamppost to a barrister’s wig being blown away.

Ellie Daghlian and Elisa Czerwenka, creatives at Uncommon, “It turns out the key to capturing the feeling of speed is to aim the leaf blower right in the model’s mouth. Our leaf blower got up to around 45mph, but with hindsight more is more, and we’d have loved an extra 30mph or so to help truly reflect the speed of flying BA from City Airport.

When it comes to the passport pages themselves, we tried it all. Flying letters, signatures taking off, hair leaving the frame - but in the end we let the photo do the main job, with subtle illustrations supporting it. It felt cleaner that way, and allowed the focus to go to the right places. We wanted to create a design that communicates quickly and clearly - but which also rewards you with more details the longer you look at it.”

The portraits were shot by the renowned photographer Emily Stein, best known for her award-winning portrait and fashion photography that brings a sense of intimacy and honesty to the subjects she captures.

The executions will be running across OOH and DOOH throughout the business districts in London during March and April this year.