If airline commercials were a
gauge of how much people
enjoy flying, you would assume
by all the smiles that they love it.

The honest truth is that flying
isn’t fun at all.

A typical flight won’t put a smile
on your face. At best, it may
make your time on the plane
go by a little bit faster: time flies.

Virgin America’s new features
made it easy to support our
point. The mood lighting, the
in-flight entertainment devices
with movies and music, the
cookies and milk, text
messaging with someone in
another seat...

An emoticon immediately came
to mind. But a smiley face (the
only kind of emoticon you saw
at the time) was counter to our
honest under promise.

A slight grin, however, was
right on.

So we developed a range of
grins which could surprisingly
serve to make even the most
odd (fresh salads anytime
during your flight) and seemingly
complex messages (LAX to
NYC) fun and memorable.