Last week, the Economic Development Board of South Australia introduced a new brand identity to more or less unanimous mockery and derision. “A folded milk carton. A monopoly hotel. Hideously disappointing. Conservative and boring” declared one reporter. When your neighbor has a logo as smashing as Melbourne’s, we suppose it’s tough to compare.
South Australia’s new logo drew derisive remarks like, “Last one out, please shut the door”
The debacle got us interested in the whole world of “destination branding” and holy smoke, it is a weird, weird niche. Beyond the inherent strangeness in treating a location as a product to be branded (sometimes with its own tagline! — “Texas: It’s like a whole other country”), we found the existing logos for the world’s countries and cities to completely run the gamut in terms of “cool” factor and basic quality.
The Best
A striking, versatile mark for London’s central Victoria district
The US city of Philadelphia takes a minimal approach, the beauty of which shines in its endless implementations
The crystalline, mathematical look of Melbourne’s logo has become the holy grail of destination branding
São Paolo’s logo is bright, inviting and legible without being generic
Egypt’s logo is youthful, relaxed and seamlessly works in some traditional symbolism
Peru’s logo likewise incorporates a cultural motif to produce a distinctive brand mark
This rich mining area on the border of Germany and the Czech Republic selected a fantastic logo that is anything but provincial
Finland’s logo is memorably abstract and incorporates gorgeous color
Odessa’s simple anchor logo references its defining location on the coast of the Black Sea, and is paired with a beautiful typeface
A star and playful brogue pattern nicely convey the character of this trendy district within the US capitol
The Worst
Hard to imagine it getting more boring than this. The nod to Facebook speak does not help.
That “T” looks like a number of things, none of which are the Italian peninsula. Add some awful upper/lower case mixing and you get a real disaster
That abstract mark in the national colors just screams “inviting”
The Hague, in fact one of Holland’s most beautiful areas, is not well represented by this crude kite design
Korea may be sparkling. This logo certainly is not
Switzerland’s logo might just take the cake, with its combination of that weird golden starfish and the mystifying phrase “get natural”
