Ottawa Smart City
Branding | Digital | Print | Campaign
This project for the City of Ottawa was completed during a work placement with one of the graphic design departments. I was given a real creative brief and tasked with designing three concepts to present. The timeline was 5 weeks, working on the project during downtime outside of other work projects. I was allowed to use stock graphics and iconography as long as it was altered and used wisely. Two of the three concepts made use of stock graphics, while the third concept was mostly my own creation (aside from some iconography) and was the concept that was chosen to move forward. All designs were designed for English, French, and bilingual.
Logo Identifier
This concept uses text with sharp lines to convey circuitry, as well as circuits forming a gear for the identifier. These are common symbols associated with the term smart city which creates cohesiveness. The Ottawa logo was required to be alongside this identifier, and the colours needed to match the Ottawa brand colours.
Poster Concepts
The three concepts each have a unique approach to the client brief. One of the key values of the City of Ottawa is diversity. For concept one (left), I wanted to create a vibrant scene with a lot of colours, portraying different members of the community living and working together. The iconography coming from the city directly relates to aspects of a smart city.
Concept two (center) was developed with the idea of an alternate or new perspective. This idea was about looking forward into our future, into new ways to live better lives. The need to be innovative, creative, diverse, and connected is apparent and necessary. With a unique perspective, a wise colour palette, and smart imagery this concept aimed to convey a feeling of growth and change through technological advancement.
The third concept (right) focused more on doing something outside of the box. This isn't exactly the usual sort of design produced by the City, but it does use the same simplistic art style. I wanted to present a different option from the norm because I felt this project called for it. This concept revolves around gears and circuitry. Putting the city on a gear with elements and imagery of circuitry throughout the layout conveys a strong message of connection and innovation (two of several keywords in the brief that the client wanted me to focus on). I included the Parliament building, as well as several different types of buildings found around Ottawa to be inclusive to all residents. The simplistic style is eye-catching and easy on the eyes. After some revisions, more building diversity and more colours were added.
Powerpoint Templates
Included in the deliverables for this project was a reusable Powerpoint template with appropriate branding. I created three slide styles; a slide for the intro/title, a slide for bullet points, and a slide for bigger blocks of text. Using graphics from the poster design helps create consistency throughout the entire project.
Social Media Ad
The Facebook ad was designed to be eye-catching and bold to attract the attention of scrolling users. I made use of some of the important iconography to highlight some key ideas of the smart city project.
Display Banner
The banner was required to be used at events. This is something that could be positioned next to a booth or set up around the city to promote the project. I added several multi-coloured gears to convey a message of innovation specifically.
Bus Ads
The client requested an internal bus ad and an external bus ad to be used on the city busses. Both ads were designed to be eye-catching and recognizable. All branding material in the project makes use of the same main graphics for consistency.
Sketches
This project was meant to be something to work on during my downtime from other projects within a 5 week time period. During this time I tried my best to understand the client brief through asking questions and copious amounts of research. I played with many ideas before settling on the three concepts I ended up presenting. Below are some of the sketches in my process. I believe rough, scattered sketching is the best way for me to get ideas out quickly so that the best design solutions start to become apparent as efficiently as possible.
