Approaching City Identity In Logo Designing From A City Branding Perspective

In the21stCentury, competitions among cities are getting increasingly fierce. In order tointroduce a city to the domestic and international markets, it is required to package and brand itjust like a product. Therefore, it is quite necessary to have it designed a logo with some identitiestypically unique to the city. This is often regarded as an ultimate goal for designers in doing thetask of logo designing with some city identities unique to a city. Under this influence, more andmore cities are increasingly appealed to the city branding construction since a good logoproperly designed is more likely to show up its superiorities to others in inter-city competitions.Needless to say, in the process of a city brand designing, the initial task is to “locate” thebrand, and to investigate the core values of it as well. When the city identity in logo designingwas determined, it is time to design a visual symbol aiming at reinforcing the possibleimpression on the possible viewers. By doing so, it will be of great help in promoting the brandof a city. It is in fact the notion above that sparkles the flare of the author’s thoughts in the thesis.In this thesis, the author argues that a logo designing task does not simply refer to a task ofdesigning a logo only pleasant to our eyes. Moreover, it is more important to locate the citybranding and then try to find out the core values the logo reflects. To achieve the goal, the authormakes a literature review, which helps the author to have a theoretical framework for this study.Furthermore, the author illustrates a variety of logos so as to let readers know the connotationsbehind the logo, that is, the city identities in logo designing. This constitutes a typicalcharacteristic of the thesis. By making a comparative analysis of some city identities exhibitedby the logos, the author makes a large quantity of case studies before getting to the conclusionconcerning the perspectives from which they are ready to show themselves and thecharacteristics they represent. In this thesis, the author makes full use of induction and deduction,hence to outline what is required for city branding, in particular, for designing logos with somecity identities. With this attempt, the author succeeds in finding out some universal rules tofollow with regards to the city identities in logo designing, that is, a logo designing task does not simply refer to a task of designing a logo only pleasant to our eyes. Moreover, it is moreimportant to locate the city branding and then try to find out the core values the logo reflects.Based on this point, the author would put the two key factors，the location of the citybranding and the core values represented by the city brand, into his own practice concerning cityidentity in logo designing. It is expected that the practical logo designing works concerning thecity branding identity of Handan in the following part will provide evidence for the argumentabove. Meanwhile, the practical work is supposed to be a valuable experience for the designersin their relevant works in the construction of Handan branding, suggesting that it will shed somelight on the designing work concerning city identities represented by China city logos.