page_title: Livery
section_title: Modern usage
hierarchical_section_title: Livery / Modern usage
caption_attribution_description: Habillage Transilien (rames desservant l'Ile de France) Lieu&#160;: Paris, France Date&#160;: Juin 2006 Auteur&#160;: Pline photo personnelle
context_page_description: A livery is a uniform, insignia or symbol adorning; in a non-military context, a person, an object or a vehicle that denotes a relationship between the wearer of the livery and an individual or corporate body. Often, elements of the heraldry relating to the individual or corporate body feature in the livery. Alternatively, some kind of a personal emblem or badge, or a distinctive colour, is featured.
  The word itself derives from the French livrée, meaning dispensed, handed over. Most often it would indicate that the wearer of the livery was a servant, dependant, follower or friend of the owner of the livery, or, in the case of objects, that the object belonged to them.
  In the late medieval phenomenon of bastard feudalism, livery badges worn by the "retainers" of great lords, sometimes in effect private armies, became a great political concern in England.
context_section_description: From this core meaning, multiple extended or specialist meanings have derived. Examples include:
  A livery company is the name used for a guild in the City of London; members of the company were allowed to dress their servants in the distinctive uniform of their trade, and the company's charters enabled them to prevent others from embarking upon the trades within the company's jurisdiction.
  Following on from the decoration of the nobility's horse-drawn carriages in their owner's livery colours, a livery is the common design and paint scheme a business will use on its vehicles, often using specific colors and logo placement. In this sense, the term is applied to railway locomotives and rolling stock, ships, aircraft, and road vehicles.  For example, United Parcel Service has trucks with a well-known brown livery. Other examples include the British Airways ethnic liveries and British Rail corporate liveries. The term has become extended to the logos, colors and other distinctive styles of companies in general. See also trade dress.
  "Vehicle Livery" can be used to promote a brand or for unrelated advertising compared to the goods contained in the vehicle. This can enable companies to become iconic as a result of their livery. An example is Eddie Stobart trucks which have a deal with Corgi to sell replicas of their trucks with livery. The practice is very common with few brands not taking advantage of putting livery on their fleet.
  A livery is the specific paint scheme and sticker design used in motorsport, on vehicles, in order to attract sponsorship and to advertise sponsors, as well as to identify vehicles as belonging to a specific racing team.
  Aircraft livery is also the term describing the paint scheme of an aircraft. Most airlines have a standard paint scheme for their aircraft fleet, usually prominently displaying the airline logo or name. From time to time special liveries are introduced, for example prior to big events.
  A "livery vehicle" remains a legal term of art in the U.S. and Canada for a vehicle for hire, such as a taxicab or chauffeured limousine, but excluding a rented vehicle driven by the renter. In some jurisdictions a "livery vehicle" covers vehicles that carry up to fifteen passengers, but not more, thus including a jitney but excluding an omnibus or motorcoach. This usage stems from the hackney cabs or coaches that could be provided by a livery stable.  By extension, there are boat livery companies for the hire of watercraft. Canada has many businesses offering canoe livery.
  A livery stable (from 1705, derived from the obsolete sense of "provender for horses" found in the mid-15th century) looks after the care, feeding, stabling, etc., of horses for pay.
caption: Transilien rolling stock livery in Paris, design by the French agency RCP Design Global
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