Seoul Metropolitan Government Unveils New Brand Identity (BI) for 'Design City Seoul’
The Seoul Metropolitan Government has developed and unveiled a new brand identity ("BI") representing "Design City Seoul". This is to effectively communicate Design Seoul 2.0, which was announced last year, and to actively promote Seoul's design business.
It was developed to create a unique and innovative brand identity that symbolizes 'Design City Seoul' to provide a unified and consistent message, raise the international profile of Seoul's design policy, and strengthen the city's identity and image in line with global standards.
The BI has also been developed in line with the new UNESCO Graphic Standards and Guidelines for the Use of the Logo, revised in September 2023.
▲Basic ▲UNESCO BI Utilization
The new BI depicts the multi-layered city of Seoul as a melting pot of different designs and cultures. The layers symbolize the city's geography, and the idea is that Seoul's design and culture extend throughout the city, creating a vibrant and colorful city. The BI is composed of four color layers: 'Companionship', 'Health', 'Charm', and 'Change'.
▲Meaning of each layer
Seoul City plans to use the new BI in a variety of ways.
First of all, it is used as the logo of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. Seoul was designated as a 'Design' Creative City by the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in 2010.
- UNESCO Creative Cities was introduced in August 2004 to foster cultural industries based on the creativity of each city, and 350 cities have been designated in seven creative fields: design, culture, music, crafts, media arts, food, and film.
It will also be used extensively in the production of promotional materials related to Seoul's design projects. The new BI will be applied to printed documents and promotional videos, as well as promotional items distributed to citizens, and will also be available on the official Seoul City website and various new media channels.
This is expected to consistently convey the image of 'Design City Seoul' online and offline.
This BI was developed under the "2024 Design Administrative Service Project". This project supports the Design Policy Officer in developing visual designs to brand the policies of each business department and communicate them to citizens in a more familiar and effective way.
The 'Design Administrative Service Project', which began in 2017, has been exclusively developing policy projects such as BI, which had been developed individually by each department of the Seoul Metropolitan Government, using the expertise of design policy officers, resulting in various effects such as improving the image of the city brand by improving the level of design and securing consistency in design policies, as well as administrative efficiency and budget savings.
In particular, the number of applications for the 'Design Administrative Service Project' from each department increased by about 360% (7 in '22 → 25 in '23) compared to the year before the announcement of Design Seoul 2.0, which shows that each department feels the need for professional design development support from the Design Policy Officer and is highly satisfied with the results.
In '23, in recognition of the achievements of these projects, the company won the 'Excellence Award' in the field of local government and innovative brand at the '1st Public Brand Awards' organized by the Korea Public Brand Promotion Agency.
"We expect the BI we developed to effectively communicate the identity of 'Design City Seoul' and raise the international profile of Seoul's design policy," said Inkyu Choi, Seoul Design Policy Officer. "We will continue to work to enhance Seoul's competitiveness through design."
▲ BI application examples of Design City, Seoul
