Everything has a brand these days, and cities are no exception. Destinations big and small use logos to promote themselves on the world stage. But for many, their most famous symbol is not a relatively ephemeral logo, but a landmark.
Designers know this, hence famous landmarks often make their way into official city logos. But one graphic designer has decided that every city needs a logo based on its most distinctive site and he's developed a whole series of type-based logos from the shapes of the landmarks themselves.
Some of the famous buildings he's used are instantly recognisable and help decipher the text if it's not immediately readable, but others are less known. Either way, the results are great to look at (see our guide to how to design a logo for tips for your own work). How many landmarks do you recognise?
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(Image credit: Mohamed Al-Jaadaby)
(Image credit: Mohamed Al-Jaadaby)
(Image credit: Mohamed Al-Jaadaby)
(Image credit: Mohamed Al-Jaadaby)
(Image credit: Mohamed Al-Jaadaby)
(Image credit: Mohamed Al-Jaadaby)
(Image credit: Mohamed Al-Jaadaby)
(Image credit: Mohamed Al-Jaadaby)
(Image credit: Mohamed Al-Jaadaby)
How many of the landmarks can you recognise in these logo designs?(Image credit: Mohamed Al-Jaadaby)
Yemen-based graphic designer Mohamed Al-Jaadaby has taken some of the most famous landmarks in the world from no fewer than 45 cities and turned them into logotypes that use typography that fits into the shape of each building.
He thought that each city deserved a logo that symbolised it, and he sought out the most distinctive building or sculpture in each case, starting with Dubai and its emblematic skyscrapers. And so we have the Sydney Opera House, Rome's Colleseum, Istanbul's Hagia Sophia and the Tokyo Tower. Other logos see 'New York' stretched tall over the shape of the Statue of Liberty in an elongated Art Deco font. Al-Jaadaby's been showing some of how he works on his Instagram account and people have been sending him requests for him to try his hand at their city.
We like the way the typography used not only fits into the shape of each landmark but also seeks to reflect its architectural style (although this does have issues for legibility in some cases). The type in the Dubai logo reflects the city's vertiginous skyline with a towering type that reaches a peak in the centre, and the Paris typography takes on the solid neoclassical forms of the Arc de Triomphe. Bangkok's logo borrows some of the curvaceousness of Thai script and the neo-gothic type for Barcelona might even have received approval from Gaudí himself.
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Al-Jaadaby's logo for London(Image credit: Mohamed Al-Jaadaby)
Curvy type for Bangkok(Image credit: Mohamed Al-Jaadaby)
A tribute to Gaudí's Barcelona(Image credit: Mohamed Al-Jaadaby)
Fancy trying your own hand at type or logo design exercises like this? Take a look at our selections of inspirational famous buildings and the design landmarks that everyone should see, and if you need to upgrade your software, then you might want to consider the best current prices on Adobe's Creative Cloud suite of apps below.
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Joe is a regular freelance journalist and editor at Creative Bloq. He writes news, features and buying guides and keeps track of the best equipment and software for creatives, from video editing programs to monitors and accessories. A veteran news writer and photographer, he now works as a project manager at the London and Buenos Aires-based design, production and branding agency Hermana Creatives. There he manages a team of designers, photographers and video editors who specialise in producing visual content and design assets for the hospitality sector. He also dances Argentine tango.
