How do you create the visual language for a place?
As the debate continues to bubble along in regards to the new logo for Melbourne, I continue to be frustrated by the lack of discussion around the most critical question; ‘so what does the Melbourne brand look like?’ How should the city of Melbourne be represented in visual language?
The answer to that question lies 50+ hours of professional, insightful design work away, and while I’d love to have the time to genuinely explore that — I don’t. What I do have though is a word cloud of some research we did on ‘what defines Melbourne’ for a brand identity project pitch late last year. In November as part of our brand strategy process we asked more than 100 people to tell us what they thought was most defining about Melbourne as a place. We illustrated the feedback in a word cloud, which is a beautifully graphic way to represent this type of data.
So whilst we can’t show you what the essence of Melbourne looks like, we can show you what the people of Melbourne believe defines the place. As-to how effectively the new brand mark communicates this essence; you can make-up your own mind.
Dave.
Tags: Brand Agency, Brand Design, Brand Strategy, Corporate Image, Graphic Design Melbourne, Melbourne Brand Strategy, Melbourne Logo
This is a great snapshot of what Melbourne is all about. Food, bars, cafe, culture, laneways, multiculturalism, sport, ect. I do not mind the new logo but i think it lacks some justification in it’s meaning. Does the new Melbourne logo have a story and idea behind it that is more than, it looks cool and modern?
@Tim, That’s the point Tim, without an apparent rationale, and with none provided by the client, we’re left wondering the relevance. A well designed brand mark will communicate the rationale without the need for explanation. I think the fact that we are seeking understanding means that new brand identity has missed the mark. Can you see any of those cues from the word cloud playing-out in the visual language of the mark?
To be honest Dave i can’t see any of those cues playing out. It is quite amazing that a quick survey of 100 people saw what defines Melbourne more than a Sydney based Landor did. Crazy!
@Tim, you’re right Tim. As with all research though, it’s not how much you look, but how much you have clarity around what you’re looking for.
I love the clouds — it’d be interesting to see what the word clouds would look like for all the major cities of the world — perhaps one of those would be a match for the Melbourne Big M
@ Mal, I love your idea Mal. It would be great to do the research on even a half dozen of the worlds great cities and word cloud that. Sounds like a project, we’d just need to get the word out in each city. Which cities do you think would be the most interesting?
I love this. As someone who has done lots of Place Branding work over the years. It shows real insight into what you are dealing with and can be used as a simple test against any visual route you are considering. great work!
Very interesting. I’m actually going to be meeting the person who worked on the strategy behind the identity soon. I think it will be interesting to hear the full rationale.
There’s a podcast here if you’re interested. I have to confess to having downloaded it, but not having the time to have listened to it all yet. http://www.mongrelmarketing.com.au/podcasts.asp
Thanks for the feedback John. It is a great tool and can be fed from a range of sources — market research, web content, on-line discussions. The graphic nature provides a great stake in the ground for client conversations unbiased by personal perspective (or should I say less biased).
Andy, thanks for the lead — I’ll have a listen. When you meet with the strategy person, I’d be really interested to find-out what role identifying the ‘spirit’ of the city played as opposed to the functional attributes. Also love to hear how well he feels the final brand image reflected his view of the strategy.
I think the word cloud does an interesting job of defining how people see there city now. What it doesn’t do is give us how we want the destination to be seen in the future. I think anyone with a bit of basic intuition good have defined Melbourne with similar attributes as the word cloud, but it takes real insight to see where the City is moving to and capturing it in a visual expression. I’d also be interested to see a cloud of how foreign countries see Melbourne as a city after all that is one of the biggest reasons for branding a destination, to position yourself on the world stage not just locally.
You make some good points Ben. One of the things about place branding is how closely it needs to be tied to the existing spirit, unlike other brand projects where the essence of a brand can be created to match future aspirations or the views of different markets. When we look at the strongest place brands — Switzerland, New Zealand or the Bahamas perhaps, the approach is very much driven by the authenticity of the place, with certain dimensions ‘dialed-up’ and others ‘dialed-down.’