Case Study: Stockholm achieves a clearer, unified city brand with Essen International

Stockholm unifies its brand in a 5-year rebrand with Essen International

The City of Stockholm, a major public sector organization, faced a challenge where its practice of creating numerous individual brands for various initiatives was obscuring its accomplishments and leading citizens to feel they were not receiving value for their taxpayer money. To address this, the city engaged the vendor Essen International for a comprehensive rebranding project that included brand strategy, design, and content services.

Essen International implemented a complete rebrand to create a single, unified identity for the city, which included a new visual and verbal identity, a bespoke typeface, iconography, and a new color palette. The solution was designed to be flexible enough to work across all the city's sectors, from suburban schools to downtown facilities, and to merge existing city-owned brands into the new identity. The result was a much clearer and more coherent brand that made the city's activities and scope more visible and understandable for its one million citizens, ultimately demonstrating the value taxpayers receive.

Stockholm