Bahir Dar - Tourism Logo Design
Bahir Dar is a growing city in Ethiopia. It is their largest tourism location and is diverse in culture. I chose this city because I wanted to challenge myself to learn about a place I’ve never heard of before. To accomplish this, I dug for as much information that the internet could provide on the city and its history.
Skills
Identity, Vector Illustration, Sketching, Typography
Challenge
To build a mark that represents the city; includes the culture, people, and attractions.
Solution
Shapes twisted together with a circle at the top. The shapes twisted together represent the cultures intertwining, while the circle symbolizes peace. Together it is a representation of how they still manage to find peace through poverty in some areas and as the city rapidly grows with diversity.
Sketches
The goal was to find something that I can evolve digitally, something that symbolizes the city’s diversity and history. Experimenting with geometric forms and textures that are seen in the imagery I was able to find through my research. This includes monasteries, tourist photos, and general history of the city.
Typography
An old style serif type was key to bringing out the long history of the city. I debated on having just the logo represent the deep rooted history, but I knew that it would have to be in the type as well so I went with LTC Italian Old Style. Then to support, Neue Kabel was a good fit that didn’t distract from the name of the city, but also represents it’s modernization and rapid growth.
Color
The colors were inspired by the city's biggest tourist attraction, Blue Nile Falls and Blue Nile River. The river and falls are important to the endemic fauna and people that live there. The green is to represent the nature aspect of the environment and tranquility. The gold is seen in the environment as well, but it also represents the wisdom that comes with the city’s history. Those two come together to form peace at the top which is the circle in a darker blue, representing a calm, serene, peaceful form.
