Providence the Creative Capital

opportunity

Identify Providence’s unique strengths and tell the story of the place in a way that would make tourists want to visit and businesses want to move here.

Schwadesign solution

In 2007, the Providence Tourism Commission hired North Star Destination Strategies, a company that specializes in creating destination brands for cities and regions, to clearly identify Providence’s strengths and use them to create a destination marketing campaign for residents, visitors, and businesses.

North Star based its research on hundreds of interviews with and surveys of local residents and residents of Boston and Hartford, as well as over 6,000 inquires to the Providence–Warwick Convention and Visitors Bureau. It also analyzed existing data from previous marketing studies created for the city.

The result of this research was the recognition that Providence’s strengths are its history of innovation and creativity in all aspects of local life. Thus was born Providence the Creative Capital.

North Star completed its work by developing a draft of the P icon, basic messaging points, and the overall vision for the campaign. To make the campaign truly local, North Star recommended that it be refined and implemented by a local design organization. In 2008, Schwadesign was selected for that task.

We’ve refined and finalized the P icon, developed the identity through a suite of fonts and colors, developed key messages and imagery, created collateral, websites, advertisements, and physical environments, and engaged local designers and artists in creating campaign materials.

The next step in the evolution and dissemination of the platform is democratic outreach—to the people of Providence in order to boost civic pride, and to city agencies for their adoption and interpretation of the brand.

providing

Strategy, identity, print collateral, promotional artifacts, vendor coordination.

belief

“In ten years of working with the city, I’ve never seen this level of collaboration uniting the various departments—it’s thrilling and unprecedented.”

— Lynne McCormack, Director, City of Providence, Department of Art, Culture + Tourism