City Branding: Virginia Beach
By updating Virginia Beach’s flag and branding, a new design will accurately represent this historical and popular tourist destination. The goal was to refresh the flag to a more modern and simple icon that holds meaning to the city it is being designed for. The new flag and icon then creates the style for the rest of the city’s branding.
Institution
Temple University, Tyler School or Art and Architecture
Art Direction
Caleb Heisey
Deliverables
Branding
Layout
Web design
Virginia Beach’s Original Flag Design
The current design features a lot of details, making the icon feel more like an illustration. The central image with a lighthouse on the beach is difficult to see along with the small type surrounded by additional details.
Word Maps and research into Virginia’s history allowed for the icon of the crown to be designated as the central icon in the flag redesign. Other Ideas included the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel
that connects Virginia Beach to the northern part of the state across the bay.
Initial Concepts
Simplicity, Symbolism, Legibility, Distinctiveness
Final Flag Design
The crown reflects Virginia being named after Queen Elizabeth I as she was known as the Virgin Queen. The central yellow part of the crown implies a sun rising over the ocean.
Colors were inspired by those found in the original flag, connecting them together and reflecting colors commonly associated with the beach.
Style Tile
The flag design to set the tone for the rest of the city’s branding. The typography is easy to read with slight stylization to the serifs. The colors are the same found in the flag with an additional orange for the website’s buttons and actions. The wave pattern connects back to the beachside city without being too distracting.
Website
The website is a new and clean design with features potential tourists would want to find on the website. The focus surrounds iconic parts of the city as well as a variety of things to do for people vacationing. A blog post section helps get people excited to visit and learn more about the city. An illustrated map is included to introduce visitors to the different areas of the beach as well.
