Background
Nestling against the mountain and facing the sea, Qingdao boasts picturesque landscape and pleasant climate, which is cool in summer and warm in winter. It is a national famous historical and cultural city, one of the first tourism cities and culturally-advanced cities in China. It is the host city for the 2008 Olympic Sailing Competition. The old urban areas featuring “red roofs, green trees, azure seas and blue skies” and the modern new area in the east add beauty to the city as a whole. The promenade along the seaside has formed a wonderful arts gallery connecting many scenic spots such as the Zhanqiao Pier, the Xiaoqingdao (Little Qingdao) Islet, the Xiaoyushan Park, the Underwater World, the №1 Bathing Beach, the Badaguan Scenic Area, the May Fourth Movement Square, the Olympic Sailing Center, the Yinhai Yacht Club, the Polar Ocean World, and the Stone Old Man Beach, etc. The scenic spots in the old urban area such as the former German Governor’s Office, the Firewood Restaurant Courtyard at Zhongshan Road, Qingdao Beer Museum, Red Winery and German Style Street are frequently visited by tourists. There are several tourist areas of national level, such as Laoshan scenic areas and seaside scenic areas. Badaguan area is full of European buildings, and is known as the “World Architecture Museum”. Qingdao is rich in natural ecological and historical landscape and a wide variety of cultural relics. Langyatai is a historic resort with man-made platforms at seaside, Qin Shinhuang, the first emperor of Qin Dynasty, visited the place three times. Xu Fu, an ancient , started his sailing voyage to Japan from here; on Tianheng Island, there are tombs of five hundred martyrs in the Western Han Dynasty. The cliff inscriptions on Tianzhu Mountain are on the State-protected Relics List. They are treasures of cliff inscriptions in China. And there are national level natural reserve area Mashan Stone Forest and ruins of Great Wall in the Qi State during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. In recent years, Qingdao has developed a number of new scenic spots such as Tianmu City, Phoenix Island Tourist Resort, Tangdao Bayside Park, Wild Animal World, Zhushan National Forest Park, Jiaonan Langyatai Scenic Area, Jimo Spa Holiday Resort, Chengyang Powerlong Square, and International Handicrafts Mall. In addition, the exhibition industry is well developed in Qingdao and many world renowned exhibitions are held in Qingdao, such as the China International Consumer Electronics Exhibition (SINOCES), China International Fishery Exhibition, Qingdao International Fashion Week, and Asia Pacific Tourist Exhibition.
Qingdao’s tourism industry has significantly improved both in terms of development speed and service quality. In 2014, Qingdao successfully entered the club called “Billion Club” with a total tourism revenue of 100 billion yuan. It received an average of 88 million tourists each year, and tourism revenue is 165.3 billion yuan. It has become an important breakthrough in expanding domestic demand and stimulating consumption, and has made steady and rapid economic and social development for Qingdao.
In the critical period of Qingdao’s rapid development of the tourism economy, Qingdao Tourism needs an identity and branding guidelines that is consistent with its image orientation as an effective visual identification of external propaganda, and it also serves as an important tool for rectifying the unstandardized status of Qingdao tourism image propaganda.
The main task of this case is to creatively design a tourism logo that is consistent with Qingdao’s tourism image and positioning. As a tool for future tourism promotion of Qingdao, it also deepens the understanding and memory of tourists on Qingdao tourism.
I used the SWOT analysis method to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of current Qingdao tourism. The competitors of Qingdao Tourism mainly come from the surrounding cities. Yantai, Weihai and Rizhao are strong competitors for Qingdao tourism. By contrasting, researching, and analyzing the tourism logos of these three cities and combining the logos of other cities in China, I have determined the design direction that uses the wave as the main creative element and the colors are bright and changeable. The waves represent that Qingdao is coastal city; due to the establishment of Qingdao just over 100 years, the bright and varied colors imply that Qingdao is a vibrant young city.
Because my client did not have a clear design intent, I did a lot of pencil and digital roughs. There was more than a year before and after, Qingdao Tourism logo has not been finalized, and my client compared the logos of other cities in China all the time, hoping that the design will absorb the advantages of others’. Three digital roughs eventually entered the final round of screening.
The graceful line represents shorelines, constituting a colorful base for the entire logo; at the same time, the four colors conveyed by “red roofs, green trees, azure seas and blue skies” are cleverly contained in the logo; beautiful Chinese calligraphy “青岛”(Qingdao) highlights the city is the core status and value of the logo; its distinctive cobblestone seal marks the beauty and romance of this seaside city. Kang Youwei’s “红瓦 绿树 碧海 蓝天”( “red roofs, green trees, azure seas and blue skies”) is the most classic, succinct, and clearest word in praise of Qingdao, and it vividly expresses the beauty of Qingdao. It is not just displaying the physical objects such as red-brown green trees and blue sea and blue sky. It is conveyed with a highly concise color that covers and demonstrates the beauty of Qingdao. “ red roofs, green trees, azure seas and blue skies “ are the most vivid descriptions of Qingdao’s “city of mountains and sea” and “eastern Switzerland”. They are unique, widely recognized and irreplaceable, and are difficult to be used by other cities.
Looking at the logo from the left-hand side, it’s like a flying seagull; looking at it from the right-hand side, it’s like waves rushing forward; beautiful Chinese calligraphy “青岛” highlights the city is the core status and value of the logo; its distinctive cobblestone seal marks the beauty and romance of this seaside city. The distinctive cobblestone seals, like the splashing drops of water, mark the beauty and romance of this seaside city.
Looking at the logo from the right-hand side, it’s like a flying seagull, which implies that the rise of the Blue Economy will bring changes that will accelerate the rapid development of Qingdao’s economic and social development. It’s also like waves rushing toward the left that stands out the features and signs of the coastal city.
The “青岛” and “红瓦 绿树 碧海 蓝天” written by Ouyang Zhongshi not only highlight the central position of the city in the logo, but also show the elegance of traditional calligraphy.
The Chinese “爱“(love) in the cobblestones is not only an expression of Chinese traditional culture, but also shows that Qingdao is a city full of love; at the same time, “爱” has a clear indication and guiding role for the public, and also conveys “love of Qingdao”.
With a highly concise color transmission and elemental composition, the logo symbolizes the “red roofs, green trees, azure seas and blue skies” and the elements of tourism, covering and displaying the beauty of the city’s cityscape.
The logo not only serves as a distinctive symbol and proposition for Qingdao tourism, but also has the connotation and capacity of the city’s overall imagery promotion.
The reason why Draft three was finally selected is because this version is more active and passionate than Draft two. Compared with Draft One, the overall situation of draft three is more full and compact. The first logo is inconsistent and the structure is loose. The draft three conforms to the original design direction in color: vivid and lively. The main element is also waves. The final design logo is now widely used as a promotional logo of Qingdao tourism on various media platforms.
Challenge
The biggest challenge in designing Qingdao tourism logo is that my client had no design intent. After dozens of presentations, the client still got no ideas, which makes the entire design process time-consuming and inefficient. A total of a few hundred roughs were designed. The client could not give any specific comment. The client just told me to refer to similar logos of other cities and absorb the strengths of others. In the end, I persuaded the client, and explained the advantages of draft three and how much did the logo fit with Qingdao’s tourism imagery. From this design project, I learned to try to persuade the clients to trust your design when the clients have no subjective design intentions and is hesitant to decide, rather than simply modifying it, resulting in a waste of time and energy.