Mikayla's Designs

Overview

The city of Detroit has years of rich history and is most known as being the center of the automobile industry during the 20th century earning the nickname: Motor City. Since then, the city has faced a rapid pace of urban decay and lost of population from industrial restructuring, loss of jobs, rapid suburbanization, and more.

Acknowledgements

Graphis New Talent Annual 2021 Platinum Award

Challenge

Poverty, crime, urban blight, and much more are ongoing issues that the city faces still giving it that bad represetation to outsiders. In order to be successful, the branding of Detroit has to appeal to non-native Detroiters and need to be reached with the correct logo, colors, typograpghy, and environment while honoring the famous history of the city from years ago.

Approach

To solve this issue and to stand out from other cities, Detroit proudly represents its unique history and showcases their value. The city of Detroit has ditinguishing characteristics and parts of history that best represents itself that needs be represented with specific colors, fonts, and environmental designs to renew itself.

Initial Logo

The logo displayed (left) was the initial logo design for the rebranding of Detroit and winner of the Graphis New Talent Competition before being simplified to the logos below. It was a combination of vintage license plates and dashboard radios which are what the city is most known for by its nicknames: Motor City and MoTown.