How do you create a coherent visual identity for something that has as many moving parts as a place? Tourism, investment, and resident communications all have distinct audiences with distinct needs. Having a distinct identity would therefore make sense on paper – but at the same time, you want to ensure that all the messaging regarding your place builds towards a greater whole.

The best solution is to develop a core framework that provides consistency across all partner organisations, while also allowing the freedom for each player to put their own spin on the design. But what’s the secret to getting that balance right?

Here are seven expert perspectives from around the world to help you build a flexible place brand identity that works across all audiences and partners.

Build a framework built on shared values and principles.

The secret is to design a system, not simply a logo. The strongest place brands begin with a clear and authentic set of place values rooted in the character, history, and aspirations of the place itself. From that foundation comes a flexible visual language of colours, typography, patterns, curated imagery, and graphic devices that can be used consistently without becoming restrictive. Rather than controlling every application, the framework empowers partners, businesses, institutions, and communities to express their own identity whilst remaining recognisably part of the wider place. Consistency comes from a shared understanding of a place’s values and principles; richness comes from allowing diverse voices to contribute to the delivery of the place brand and placemaking.

Wayne Hemingway MBE, Partner, Hemingway Design 

Adoption is a governance problem. 

No secret, just a decision about what stays fixed. Lock the smallest core: a logotype behaviour, a typographic voice, a rule for how things sit together. Everything else flexes: colour, imagery, tone, even the name alongside yours. Write the manual in detail, but organise it around what’s non-negotiable and what’s open, so it enables rather than polices. Give people a reason to use it: reach, funding, membership. Adoption is a governance problem, not a design one. If a hotel, a festival and a neighbourhood association make something that looks like theirs and still reads as the place, it’s working.

Manolis Psarros, CEO & Chief Strategist, TOPOSOPHY

A common design language connects the dots between organisations.

The goal isn't to make everything look the same. It's to make everything feel connected. Every place needs a clear visual identity for official communications, where people should immediately recognise they're hearing from the municipality or a specific organisation. Beyond that, a broader design system can provide the flexibility for community initiatives, Made In programmes, districts, events, partnerships, and even open-source community use. By sharing a common design language, each expression serves its own purpose while contributing to an overall place brand identity that is both recognisable and adaptable.

Ryan Short, CEO, CivicBrand

Prioritise modular assets rather than restrictive templates.

The secret lies in moving beyond a rigid logo and building a highly stylised design system. A successful modern visual identity operates like a premium magazine: it establishes a strong, overarching aesthetic through typography, a distinct colour palette and curated photography, while leaving room for individual stories to shine. By providing destination partners with modular, high-end assets rather than restrictive templates, you give them the tools to elevate their own marketing. When the core identity feels aspirational, partners are naturally eager to adopt its elements because they add value to their own brand narrative.

PJ Yesawich, Executive Creative Director, Miles Partnership

Get the fundamentals right, and your partners will be able to express themselves freely.

Visual design is your place's values and character expressed without words. A strong visual identity system is not a secret but a logical outcome of your Place identity (Place Positioning). There are well-defined laws for translating ideas into colours and forms, and good designers (and brand strategists) should know them. Your brand platform must specify broad categories of colours (e.g. natural or synthetic), shapes (e.g. rounded or sharp), compositions, which will inform your brand visual style. These lay down the fundamental rules for the visual style and assure its consistency. Once these fundamentals are clear, partners can be invited to interpret and apply them in their own work, creating an abundance of visual tools that all convey the same meaning and the same brand identity—with or without using a logo. Please see Visit Tatarstan or South Australia cases in the Place Brand Portfolio for a rich and versatile visual style that expresses the region's personality very well.

Natasha Norman, Co-founder and Director, INSTID (Institute for Identity)

Create space for partners to add their own spin to your story.

Be authentic enough to service your particular place, with the ability for brand adopters to add elements. “Authenticity” allows all individual players to see themselves in the identity and map theirs onto it. “Ability to add elements” could mean your first rollout includes only select primary colours, opening space for the secondary palettes of brand adopters. Perhaps you’ll use one leading typeface, with room for complementary typefaces from adopters. Or maybe you begin an idea, such as “Virginia is for lovers,” leaving opportunities for adaptations: Virginia is for wine lovers, beach lovers, history lovers, and so on.

John Armstrong, Chief Creative Officer, Joy Riot

Each place requires a unique solution.

There is no secret. Each client is unique, and we should approach design with their particulars in mind, especially considering resident sentiment and culture. Don’t design too much. Think about the brand as a container for photo and video content. Design brand elements which, working together, present ads and content in a consistent and compelling way that enhances the photo or video content.

Matthew Heckart, Creative Director, Trove Tourism Development Advisors