Developing Strategic Branding For City Municipalities

Workshop Brief

Municipalities large and small have discovered the need to market their brand to key audiences: businesses, developers and individuals considering relocation. These interconnected groups are vital to a municipality’s success and those cities and towns whose brand message successfully spans this spectrum enjoy robust tax bases, public-private amenity development and an engaged citizenry.

This workshop will remake respective participants into more knowledgeable brand champions by immersing them in an intensive, three-day learning experience: readings, visually supported lectures and hands-on projects. Topics will include industry specific brand understanding and strategic development; brand visualization and organization; brands naming; and brand case studies: brand successes and failures. The workshops are principally structured for individuals charged with brand development and deployment but who do not have backgrounds in communication or marketing design

At the conclusion of this workshop, attendees will have leaned about and demonstrated ways they can:

  • Understand what makes a brand different, generally and specific to their industry
  • Define the core values of a brand’s message and design
  • Determine the appropriate visual language for a brand
  • Strategize industry specific offerings and communications
  • Use and/or expand upon existing brand components
  • Analyze their own unique organization’s needs and brand development

Ideal Workshop Candidate

The workshops are principally structured for individual city, community, academic, professional, governmental or organizational leaders charged with a city or communities brand development, brand design and brand deployment but who do not have backgrounds in visual communication or marketing design.

Instructors

Eric Ligon & Keith Owens

Ligon + Owen Design
Strategic Brand Consultancy

Eric Ligon Bio

Program Coordinator for Com. Design, College of Visual Arts and Design, University of North Texas

ligon@unt.edu

 

Eric Ligon is the program coordinator for the communication design program at the University of North Texas, in which he teaches the full array of courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. He and his teaching colleague and business partner, Keith Owens, have branded/rebranded and designed the identities for The University of North Texas System, the University of North Texas (UNT), The University of North Texas Dallas, The new College of Law at UNT Dallas, the UNT Health Science Center, and the City of Anna, Texas. Ligon is also the president and cofounder of BrailleInk, a non-profit organization that produces dual-use, braille and print children's books in his patented format that encourages sighted and blind individuals to share reading time.

 

UNT Communication Design Blog

UNT College of Visual Arts and Design web site

UNT Communication Design Student Forum

 

Keith Owens Bio

Associate Professor, College of Visual Arts and Design, University of North Texas

kowens@unt.edu

 

Keith Owens is an associate professor teaching in the University of North Texas College of Visual Arts and Design. With colleague Eric Ligon, Owens has co-lead efforts to brand or rebrand The University of North Texas System, the University of North Texas (UNT), The University of North Texas Dallas, the new College of Law at UNT Dallas, the UNT Health Science Center, and the City of Anna, Texas. In addition to his teaching and professional activities, Owens speaks and writes extensively about design responsibility. As a design volunteer for Partners of the Americas, Owens has operationalized his activist philosophy by providing in-country support for farm cooperatives in Haiti. Professor Owens has also taught at Texas Tech University and worked as a design firm owner and director in Dallas and San Francisco.