The northern powerhouse eradicates the cliche that if it isn't happening in London, it isn't happening at all and the other cliche that the south has sucked economic life and talent away from the north.
Over the last thirty years, London has become a global capital, the home of international finance, attracting the young, the ambitious, the wealthy and the entrepreneurial from around the world in their tens of thousands.
But something remarkable has happened here in Manchester, and in Liverpool and Leeds and Newcastle and other northern cities over these last thirty years too.
The once hollowed-out city centres are thriving again, with growing universities, iconic museums and cultural events, and huge improvements to the quality of life.
The cities of the north are individually strong, but collectively not strong enough. The whole is less than the sum of its parts so the powerhouse of London dominates more and more, and that’s not healthy for our economy. It’s not good for our country, we need a Northern Powerhouse too.
How can we create the Northern Powerhouse?
By joining our northern cities together – not physically, or into some artificial political construct – but by providing the modern transport connections they need; by backing their science and universities; by backing their creative clusters; and giving them the local power and control that a powerhouse economy needs.
Background
The government has recently revealed a strategy to develop the North of England as a second economic capital of Britain to redress the economic balance across the country and to complete on the world stage. They are calling this strategy the Northern Powerhouse.
The government believes that, by improving the transport infrastructure through HS3 connecting Leeds to Manchester, and tapping into the huge potential of the North of England, the North will become the globally significant economic force it has always promised to be.
Great global cities have many attributes - access to deep pool of human capital, great jobs and businesses. Fast and effective transport connections. Strong universities and hospitals, colleges and schools. They have the entertainment, the green spaces, the housing, culture and sport that makes for a good lifestyle.
On a global scale northern cities are quite small and have individual strengths but together they have the capacity to act as a global city. The concept of 'The Northern Powerhouse' builds on the idea that those cities, in a belt that runs from Liverpool to Hull are stronger together, not as a rival to London, but to be its brother in arms in the fight for British share of the global economy.
Although HS3 will not be a reality until 2030, the idea already has a significant impetus and the process of 'connecting' the major cities has already begun. Although, the current government is driving this forward, the idea has been around for many years and it is now fully accepted that this is the way forward for Britain.
Brief
To brand the Northern Powerhouse and create awareness of it's many varied attributes to the rest of the world.
There's still a lot of uncertainty around the detail of how a 'Northern Powerhouse' will manifest itself, however for the moment let's assume the four cities that head up the 'Powerhouse' will be Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Hull which creates a nice neat line across the 'North'.
The idea requires a name and a brand, so that the world understands that this is a significant single entity. After a 'consultation process' with all the key stakeholders the name 'Capital North' has been selected - combining purpose and place. It's easy to remember and recall.
This is an identity project, very much about th craft and visual problem solving of design. The brief and name is all sorted so there's nothing to distract you - concentrate on working a big visual idea around the brief and producing beautifully crafted elements.
Sweat the small stuff - we want to work every element really hard. Not only should the big idea be compelling but the way it's brought to life, the attention to detail, the way it looks should be beautiful and carefully considered.
When considering final solutions, avoid cliches and stereotypes. Rolling countryside, regional dialects and visual shorthands are not appropriate here. This is not what it's like to be in t'North, its role is to attract interest and investment to a region with an ambition to create prosperity to rival any economic power.
We looked at existing city branding:
The government has recently revealed a strategy to develop the North of England as a second economic capital of Britain to redress the economic balance across the country and to complete on the world stage. They are calling this strategy the Northern Powerhouse.
The government believes that, by improving the transport infrastructure through HS3 connecting Leeds to Manchester, and tapping into the huge potential of the North of England, the North will become the globally significant economic force it has always promised to be.
Great global cities have many attributes - access to deep pool of human capital, great jobs and businesses. Fast and effective transport connections. Strong universities and hospitals, colleges and schools. They have the entertainment, the green spaces, the housing, culture and sport that makes for a good lifestyle.
On a global scale northern cities are quite small and have individual strengths but together they have the capacity to act as a global city. The concept of 'The Northern Powerhouse' builds on the idea that those cities, in a belt that runs from Liverpool to Hull are stronger together, not as a rival to London, but to be its brother in arms in the fight for British share of the global economy.
Although HS3 will not be a reality until 2030, the idea already has a significant impetus and the process of 'connecting' the major cities has already begun. Although, the current government is driving this forward, the idea has been around for many years and it is now fully accepted that this is the way forward for Britain.
Brief
To brand the Northern Powerhouse and create awareness of it's many varied attributes to the rest of the world.
There's still a lot of uncertainty around the detail of how a 'Northern Powerhouse' will manifest itself, however for the moment let's assume the four cities that head up the 'Powerhouse' will be Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Hull which creates a nice neat line across the 'North'.
The idea requires a name and a brand, so that the world understands that this is a significant single entity. After a 'consultation process' with all the key stakeholders the name 'Capital North' has been selected - combining purpose and place. It's easy to remember and recall.
This is an identity project, very much about th craft and visual problem solving of design. The brief and name is all sorted so there's nothing to distract you - concentrate on working a big visual idea around the brief and producing beautifully crafted elements.
Sweat the small stuff - we want to work every element really hard. Not only should the big idea be compelling but the way it's brought to life, the attention to detail, the way it looks should be beautiful and carefully considered.
When considering final solutions, avoid cliches and stereotypes. Rolling countryside, regional dialects and visual shorthands are not appropriate here. This is not what it's like to be in t'North, its role is to attract interest and investment to a region with an ambition to create prosperity to rival any economic power.
We looked at existing city branding:
We also realise that this is going to be something that wouldn't come into action until 2030 and so the outcomes would have to be timeless. Therefore, we want our outcomes to be clean and simple.
Concept Development
Before we pull together anything visual we thought it would be best to meet up as a group and throw around ideas for a brand concept. We all feel that a brand needs to communicate a visual story and user experience is vital therefore we are trying to find a unique angle to come at to avoid the cliche location branding.
We thought there are two angles we can come from in regards to branding Capital North:
- Focus on the four individual cities and brand each of them in the same aesthetic that would then be representative of Capital North as a whole. We feel this is a pretty obvious cliche kind of route and wouldn't focus on what the whole northern powerhouse is about. It would work fine for an individual city but we are trying illustrate that through coming together we are stronger.
- Visually represent the metaphor of four individual entities working together to become a stronger . The idea of four things coming together, interweaving, supporting each other to create a force that together is strong.
We think the latter of the two is definitely the best option for us creatively, however it's going to be a lot tougher to visually represent this in a way that both tells the story of Capital North and aesthetically looks good.
We thought there are two angles we can come from in regards to branding Capital North:
- Focus on the four individual cities and brand each of them in the same aesthetic that would then be representative of Capital North as a whole. We feel this is a pretty obvious cliche kind of route and wouldn't focus on what the whole northern powerhouse is about. It would work fine for an individual city but we are trying illustrate that through coming together we are stronger.
- Visually represent the metaphor of four individual entities working together to become a stronger . The idea of four things coming together, interweaving, supporting each other to create a force that together is strong.
We think the latter of the two is definitely the best option for us creatively, however it's going to be a lot tougher to visually represent this in a way that both tells the story of Capital North and aesthetically looks good.
DBA Visit
Today we were visited for a second time by the five respected creative directors and members of DBA to have a kind of progress crit and to share our initial ideas with. We pitched both of our ideas to Ian Thompson of Thompson Brand Partners, he definitely preferred the second of the two ideas which is trying to build the brand around the concept of four things coming together to create a stronger force, which is what capital north actually is. He felt this was strong as it differed from all the other groups approach and he felt it told the story of Capital North, the whole idea of cities with certain attributes working together and along with London can take on any powerhouses of the world.
Ian suggested a few paths to go down and wrote a little action plan for us:
Visual Development
Although we have decided on the idea of four things coming together to form the ultimate force we were struggling to find some form of visual representation that remained interesting and engaging. We thought the greatest representation of this in action is the square, four sides creating unity and rigidity that is stronger than any singular line. But we feel that square is lacking quite a lot in all the departments and doesn't tell a story.
We felt that we were on the right path with the idea of using a square so we looked for visual influences along similar lines to a square that we could quite possibly use and build on. The starting point was simply typing 'square' into designspiration and seeing what it threw up and what we could develop. I came across some work from an artist named Jack Walsh who's done a couple of paints on top of photographs that we felt were visually very interesting and could be used as a starting point for our own ideas.
Jack Walsh
These images have given us the idea of using a shape on top of images to represent Capital North, the image in the background tells the story of Capital North. But we still need to decide on what the shape is or will represent, we all still think a square isn't representative of the cities individual characteristics and attributes.
In brief:
I got out a projector and suggested that we should all meet up and design the key parts together as we would all be able to see the screen could easily get stuff done.
- Capital North is made from attributes and the cities are a apart of this.
- 4 lines coming together to make one entity.
- 4 lines are stronger together, making a structure.
- 4 lines individually weak but together they form a stronger entity.
- The length of the line is determined by the size of each attribute. (Economy, Transport, Education, Culture)
I got out a projector and suggested that we should all meet up and design the key parts together as we would all be able to see the screen could easily get stuff done.
This idea worked very well as we all had an input into the initial designs. The plan was to design core visual identity together then we would be able to work individually once this was confirmed. These were some very early experiments in attempting to create a logo:
I looked at using outlined text, which we felt was very appropriate as it fit in with the idea of using shapes and lines.
As we were stuck with a Capital North logo, we then moved onto making the shape for each city:
As you can see above, we gave a Manchester it's level of attributes. We continued to do this for each city.
Once we had give each city a line depending on its attributes, we created a system where by these lines would created a quadrilateral shape. Placing each line on the corresponding axis we are able to generate a unique shape for each city. As these shapes are generated by their attributes, in theory any city could have one.
Once we had these shapes, we thought about how we could use them and how they could interact with object within the environment and train livery etc. We thought a train going from one city to another could have the two city shapes as identifiers. We tried to make these shapes using the blend tool and also joining points. They created some very interesting visuals.
With the Capital North being the best of everything in terms of attributes, thus having the longest line for each sector. This would make a square. I tried to create some logos using a square but they were lacking in something.
I came up with the idea of somehow involving all of the shapes within the Capital North logo. Eventually, we settled on the logo below.
Once we had the logo and shapes, we thought about what we could do with them. We knew we wanted to use photography within our proposal. There are beautiful things in the north, the green space, the culture, the buildings, and we want to show these off. There is no better way to do this than using photographs. Priyesh was researching into Leeds and found these images.
He then began applying the shapes into the images, cutting sections out to make it seem as though the shape is actually interacting with the city.
As we were all together whilst working on this, we were all able to give quick feedback and help find images. Below are some more examples of the images we all applied our city shapes into.
Now that we had a logo, me and Priyesh were able to start mocking this onto appropriate places within the environment. So for example at train stations, you would be likely to see the Capital North mark.
Considering George Osborne has spoke about this issue a lot, and given many talks on this plans for a Northern Powerhouse.
We were also asked to looked at train livery and thought about how this could work. We liked the idea of one shape transforming into another shape, and thought it was appropriate. Once we had mocked it up onto a train, we both agreed it did not look as good as we envisaged.
We were also required to create 4 posters for each city, which can be seen below. We wanted the posters to reinforce the importance of Capital North.
Priyesh got a load of quotes from his research that may be useful for this situation -
“make the cities of the north a powerhouse for our economy again” – George Osborne
“Which part of England has the fastest-growing economic activity right now? The North-East.”
“Where are people joining the labour market at the fastest rate? The North-West and North-East.”
“Where is construction strongest? Yorkshire and Humberside.”
“Not one city, but a collection of northern cities - sufficiently close to each other that combined they can take on the world.”
“We need to bring the cities of the north together as a team – that’s how Britain will beat the rest.”
“Here in the north we have some of the best universities and teaching hospitals in the world. Fantastic museums and theatres too, all surrounded by the most beautiful countryside.”
“together our northern cities can be more than the sum of their parts.”
“The last census found that the average commute of someone who travels into London from outside is 40 miles. If you make a circle of the same distance, and centre it here on Manchester, you’d have a catchment area that takes in Leeds, Sheffield and Liverpool, Lancashire, Cheshire and Yorkshire, and contains ten million people – more than Tokyo, New York or London. An area containing nearly two million graduates. A huge pool of talent.”
“innovators and entrepreneurs are attracted to creative, cultural, beautiful places.”
"Our ambition is to build a northern powerhouse as a complement to the strength of our capital city, where we bring together our great cities of the North."
“a single voice for the north to be taken seriously in the corridors of power.” - Ged Fitzgerald, Chief executive of Liverpool City Council
We settled on "Not one city, but a collection of northern cities - sufficiently close to each other that combined they can take on the world" This also reiterated how close the major northern cities are and that we should make the most of this. Whilst Priyesh was working on mock-ups, I thought about the poster and experimented with different layouts. All of the posters incorporated an image of the city interacting with its unique shape. I worked on the projector and Priyesh gave me constant feedback, resulting in these final outcomes:
Mock-ups in environments:
In addition to the posters, we also thought about how we could use a similar concept across billboards. George Osborne described the North as 'Creative, cultural and beautiful'. We thought these were three strong words that we should use. We also used my idea of outlined type to reflected the shapes that we have been using.
Priyesh then began sorting out the presentation whilst I finished off imagery and mock-ups. Here is our final presentation that we presented:
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