Client: Primăria Alba Iulia
Year: 2022
Services: Branding strategy, Logo design, Brand manual
Alba Iulia City Hall is one of the most successful local government authorities in terms of attracting European funds, becoming a best practice model for many other city halls, county councils, associations and local action groups.
It is estimated that by 2030 the City Council will have attracted more than €300 million in European funds.
The project, co-financed with European funds through the INTERREG Danube programme, with a budget of over €2 million, aimed to connect the historical Roman routes in the Danube region.
Sixteen regional partners from 8 countries bordering the Danube contributed to the project, with the ultimate goal of creating an eco-cultural corridor connecting Romania with the countries along the Danube route, reaching as far as Germany.
Even if we often hesitate to declare our preferences when it comes to the projects we are involved in, we will never hesitate to say that the cultural ones are our favourites. And in this case, the cultural component was harmoniously interwoven with the historical one, which made our work even more enjoyable.
The project, which lasted 6 months, involved an initial research-documentation phase, after which we developed the representative concepts.
The logo and slogan we chose symbolize the components of the Roman roads, a contiguous transnational element that crosses the borders of the 9 countries participating in the project and provides a relevant scale for exchange and common development.
The route is to be marked with milestones on which its logo and the distance to the objectives will be applied.
There were two categories of deliverables according to the specifications, one comprising the representative logo, the slogan/motto supporting the project message and the brand manual, the other represented by the common branding strategy of the Roman eco-cultural route in the Danube Region.
The client’s intention was to get a complex logo, incorporating the most well-known symbols related to the Danube, nature and the heritage of the Roman Empire: Roman architecture – the bridge, the arches, the road, the typography and reflecting the most distinctive brand values: diversity, fascinating history, rich culture, nature, connection, continuity.
History and culture are reflected in the arch shape chosen for the upper part of the logo, while for the lower part we opted for the straight shape of bridge legs built during the Roman Empire.
Also in the upper part, we used the sun symbol, whose route during the day on the E-V axis mirrors the Danube’s path from its sources to the Black Sea on the same geographical axis.
Nature was symbolised by the region’s specific relief features, mostly high, hilly and mountainous, coloured in shades of green, which also brings to mind outdoor travel on the marked cycling and hiking trails along the route.
The central part of the logo is taken up by the Danube, with its waves symbolising the connection between the 8 countries of the region and the natural continuity of the corridor.
Finally, in the lower part we returned to the symbolic representation of the historical heritage of the Roman Empire, with its stone roads, built with a technique that has ensured their durability until today.
The branding concept included the creation of the route’s slogan, based on the project’s goals. The name of the route was also based on the name of the Danube in ancient Greek – Via Ister. Several variants of the slogan were proposed, from which the first one was chosen, which best reflects the intended message.
The slogan retains the font inspired by Roman inscriptions to maintain a unified visual identity.
A brand manual has been developed, which is a document explaining how a brand should be presented to the public and how people should come into contact with it. It is used not only by those working on the project but, more importantly, by those using the brand externally. The handbook contains detailed explanations of: the mission and values, the logo, the colour scheme or tone of voice through which the message is expressed.
The set of materials that are part of the common branding strategy were presented to the client in workshops at several intermediate stages of the project:
A set of tourism promotion campaigns, both digital and physical, in all countries crossed by the route and a set of brand communication and promotion actions for the next 5 years (including events, festivals, etc.) have been created to strengthen the promotion of the Roman tangible and intangible heritage.
The strategy was presented during an interactive discussion with all the project partners, which resulted in the creation of the PDF document containing the Brand Manual as an annex.
In January 2022 we started to collaborate with Online Hub, a professional team with whom we developed the concept of a new brand for a tourist route, to be created within the ConnectIng hiSTorical Danube rEgions Roman routes project (acronym ISTER), funded by the Danube-Interreg Transnational Programme, in which Alba Iulia Municipality was a partner. The decision to work with Online Hub resulted from the public procurement procedure for branding services: branding strategy and logo development for the Danube ethno-cultural Roman route, within the project.
Since the beginning of the collaboration we have experienced effective communication and a lot of openness on their part. The professionalism of the team resulted from their creative and dynamic spirit, the way and stages of work, the approach and creation of the branding strategy that resonated with the purpose of the ISTER project, the materials presented in the process of developing the new brand, their expertise and commitment that they showed throughout the collaboration.
Words that describe the Online Hub team very well are: experience, adaptability (without compromising quality, even when requirements are demanding), creativity, punctuality. I would like to thank the Online Hub team, because the results were as expected! I confidently recommend Online Hub services!
(Gabriela PODARU, Councillor, Alba Iulia City Hall)
