Hull Branding

Client:
Hull City Council

Project:
Hull City Branding

Responsibility:
Brand Design & Strategy

Hull is like nowhere else! It doesn’t try to be something it’s not. Hull is a great place to live, to work, to invest in, to visit, to study, and to create in. It’s a place where you can make your own story.

The brand for Hull has been carefully created to reflect the ambitions and priorities of the City. It aims to capture what Hull is and what it means to the many constituencies that play a role in making the City the great and unique place it is.

Hull is very much an historic maritime city. We felt it was important to incorporate this into the brand without using any obvious cliches. The the brand elements reflect this heritage whilst presenting the city as a forward looking vibrant place to live, work, visit and invest. The bold serif typography reflects Hull’s strength and resilience and is inspired by the letterforms used on many of the City’s buildings and maritime vessels. The patterns are abstract representations of nautical flags, a kind of modern day heraldry that can be applied in infinite ways.

Pulling all the elements together we have designed a kit of parts, a toolkit, containing the logo, patterns, colour pallet and fonts that can be used together or apart if required, depending on the application. The City branding guide allows for flexible brand development in the future.

This project was a collaboration with branding consultant Derek O’Conner from New York based Orchard Park. Graham (Human Design) and Derek (Orchard Park) have worked together for over 25 years and were honoured to be asked to brand the city in which they had both grown up and lived.

Also see Reuters, Amy Johnson Festival and Larkin25 for other examples of brand design.