Branding the boroughs

 

Last week I popped along to the exhibition 'London's Towns' at the Building Centre in London. Subtitled "Shaping the Polycentric City", (download catalogue here) the exhibition looked at developments proposed across the London boroughs, as each looks to assert an identity within the larger metropolis.

It seems that every borough needs a masterplan these days. The focus of many boroughs' displays was to highlight their efforts to develop as a standalone 'hub': a retail, cultural and commercial centre that could resist the gravitational pull of Central London. Some, such as Greenwich, Croydon and Stratford see their future as a city within a city. 

'London's Third City', Croydon boldy proclaims, neglecting the fact that Heathrow can already be considered such. But you have to give Croydon credit for its gutsy vision, (already attracting admirers in Paris), a colourful masterplan by Alsop, and by far the swankiest model on display that understandably was given centre stage.

Inevitably, with the exhibition sponsored by the various London Boroughs themselves, there was little critical analysis of the visions presented. Is the city becoming more fragmented? Or is there a framework emerging for a more coherent whole, within which each of the boroughs has a chance to establish a unique character?

It struck me that all the boroughs were seeking to establish an identity, and yet a compelling graphic rebranding would be a far stronger way of doing this than through some badly conceived urban masterplanning.

I recently discovered that every city and ward in Tokyo has its own flag. What's more, they're awesome. Each is unique, but there is also a visual consistency and pattern to them, a typology, that lends them great overall coherence.

Compare this with the logos of the assorted London boroughs, a truly horrific collection of bad clip art, worse typography, pointless squiggles, and the occasional moronic slogan ("The London Borough", "putting residents first", "the brighter borough").

Does London have the boldness to implement such a branding exercise? I think it would help give residents of each of the boroughs a strong sense of identity, some team colours so to speak. I'm reminded of the Scorpion football campaign by Nike back in 2002, where each borough of London was given a name, eg Enfield Tigers, Merton Jungles, Bromley Boxers (?), and then teams from the boroughs would battle it out in a first-goal-wins knockout tournament at the Millennium Dome.

As in many things, the marketeers are a long way ahead of the urbanists.

Comments

[John]

Those are inspired by japanese family crests http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mon_(crest). Maybe the London burroughs also could use symbols inspired by western heraldic crests (some of them actually do).

[mario b.]

vid. lance wyman's 1968 scheme for the mexico city metro stations. friggin love these

[mario b.]

sorry, this link is more informative

[Zachary Vishanoff]

Nike is tearing down my neighborhood to build a branded Nike-urbanism development. I have posted six videos at Youtube about the problem. To find the videos use the search at the Youtube website with keywords:nike university of oregon.

[Konk]

For some inspired medieval city-quarter branding, check out the Sienese contrade:

http://www.aboutsiena.com/Palio-races-of-Siena/the-contrades-of-the-palio-of-Siena.html

[Dan Bissonnet]

Interesting idea - the Tokyo flags actually strike me as quite military: like insignia for divisions of an army.

The borough boundaries are so broad in London that it's hard to feel passionate about them. A while ago, I played around with this idea on a smaller level; producing a few logos for some of the neighbourhoods around south London.
http://www.asinglehumanbeing.co.uk/work/drawings/neighbourhood-branding/

[kosmograd]

Interesting ideas Dan, though I think that you're falling into the trap of trying to represent an essence of each of the neighbourhoods in the logo itself. I think this can lead to the jumble of logos that the London Boroughs currently have. The alternative approach is to create a strong typographic language/ iconography which then helps define the identity of the area it represents.

Of course, if you're Lance Wyman, you might be able to pull off an identity which does both, as he did in Mexico, as mentioned by Mario B above.

Stay tuned for the second part of Branding the Boroughs, soon.

[!!!]

a year later - your post is up on the Conran blog!

[Samuel Brooks]

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