On a recent flight From Seattle to NYC, Tyler Thompson, the creative director at Squarespace, decided to tackle the boarding pass — an object used by many, yet often overlooked and rarely reconsidered.

After some sketches in his Moleskine, Tyler came up with these:

Tyler’s efforts sparked a conversation and others jumped into the ring.  What is important about the designs that follow is that they take into account design limitations, such as the fact that boarding passes are printed with thermal printers and international flights require longer bar codes.  I think too often people redesign products that end up being sexier but don’t really consider the critical elements or the importance of function and usability.  I like that the design community brought these facts to Tyler’s attention and more importantly, I applaud Tyler for opening it up for discussion.  It’s these sorts of conversations that make life interesting.

This is JJ at Graphicology take:

And Timoni Grone‘s version:

And one of my personal favorites from Yoni De Beule:

See more designs and read more of the discussion here