The making of the Saint Petersburg tourist logo

Our task is to come up with a tourist logo for Saint Petersburg.

The designer is searching for a starting point.

Bridges, rivers and a halo.

Art director: You can play with Numbers 1, 2 and 6.

Art director: There are no bridges here, let’s do it like this:
Saint Peters/
\burg,
only the bridges should be attached to the top of the letters and not be as long.

Using ligatures to convey the bridge metaphor.

Art director: 1, 3, 6.

Adjusting the shape.

Type designer: In the English version the bridges look odd and brake the shape of the letters, the bridge above the i looks like a wrong diacritical mark. In Russian version it’s not even clear that these are bridges. Maybe, we should simply use the ligatures and swashes like on the picture to the right? The letters have enough characters as they are.

Art director: No, we’re not removing the bridges or slashes.

Meanwhile the second designer shows his work to the art director.

Well, he needs to look for a better shape, it’s too raw at the moment. And the letter s must stay, it’s part of peters.

Art director: 2 and 5.

Assembling a presentation and demonstrating to the client.

Deciding to go with the first variant, developing the symbol into a series of logos for all possible purposes. Thinking what else we can add.

Going through the options to pick the best. Emphasizing the underlying ellipse shape.

Checking out how it might work.

Polishing the details.

Trying it on.

Looks too fragmented. Deciding to make the contour of a uniform width.

Discarding all the symbols where the ellipse cannot be easily read.

The final result.

Since it’s a tourist logo, we have to try it on an exhibition booth.

Writing brief recommendations on booth design.

Information kiosks can often be seen in Saint Petersburg.

Also, the city might need booklets, postcards, catalogs, calendars, guide books, etc.

Decorating AeroExpress cars.

Coming up with a brand book cover.