Logos for clean air

Trying to encompass a city into a logo can be challenging. But this particular project was fun because I got to learn about faraway cities through the design process.

Clean Air Asia partners in Vietnam were tapped in the creation of logos for their respective campaigns in specific cities. They work to research and promote clean air policies, and one of the things they needed was a logo to represent a particular campaign. With the help of Clean Air Asia’s team based in Manila, I got to know their cities without having to leave home.

The challenge for me was to develop a logo that reflected a bit of their city. At the same time, the logo also had to share traits with logos from partner cities implementing similar campaigns. So into Google I went, traveling to Ho Chi Minh and Vinh Yen in Vietnam through my browser.

I downloaded images and created simple renditions of certain landmarks of each city. A prominent Ho Chi Minh landmark is the People’s Committee building, so I added that. After sending the first draft, the partners in Ho Chi Minh expressed the need to make Saigon River larger, as well as the addition of nipa palms to help portray a clean environment in the city.

When I realized they also had nipa palms in Vietnam, I couldn’t help but think about Philippine rivers like the Pasig in Manila or Agno in Pangasinan. I wondered if one day Filipinos could be proud of their own clean rivers too, similar to the Seine in Paris or the Thames in London. These examples are probably not the best either, as Parisians and Londoners have their own complaints about their home rivers, but we can all do better I guess.

The partners in Vinh Yen suggested some changes to their first draft too. I initially sent a pagoda sitting atop a rice field, but they preferred it to sit on top of lakes that are actually far more prominent in their city than I thought. Google can only take you so far; seeing a place through the eyes of its inhabitants has always been the best way to see the world.

The client feedback was swift and concise, and after a few weeks, we had logos that everyone was happy with. As far as clean air in these cities is concerned, I know the logos by themselves won’t do the work. It will be the people and partners I had the chance to work with (albeit on a mere email thread) who will take it all the way… for all our sakes.