DNCO

You can’t improve what you don’t measure, so this year we joined thousands of companies in taking a much bigger step to lower emissions.

Retailers know they need to leverage the joy of the unexpected. Place brands can tap into this too by setting the element of surprise at the heart of everything from messaging to wayfinding, and design to partnerships.

Here are some mind-shifting stats that prove the impact of culture on a place's economy, helping us all change the conversation around culture from nice-to-have to must-have.

At City Nation Place UK, we heard the pressing need for creativity in city brands facing financial challenges. Here are 11 practical strategies we picked up to turn these challenges into opportunities:

Say what you like about the opening ceremony: the bigger question is what will the Olympics mean for the Paris city brand?

As City Nation Place’s global conference returned to London, rebranded with our bold and dynamic new identity, DNCO hosted a roundtable about co-creation and presented an expert-led session on defeating ‘doom loop’ narratives. Here’s what we learned from two days of rubbing shoulders with place experts from the world over.

What if there was a way to engender loyalty, tighten partnerships, exemplify what you’re like to work with — all for free?

Few categories of branding are as emotive as place branding. So why would we presume to brand a place halfway round the world?

As this globally renowned place branding conference took place in the UK this September, we had the privilege of hosting a roundtable discussion with people on the forefront of placemaking.

There’s an obsession with being number one. It started with biggest, tallest and newest and has spread into coolest and best connected. But audiences aren’t as easily convinced. So how do we connect beyond the headline?

If we’re happy with a coffee cup signposting us to a cafe, then why does signage get all coy when it comes to toilets? DNCO’s head of innovation, Patrick Eley, argues that it’s time to de-twee this most urgent of wayfinding.

Every weekday, around 700,000 people catch the London Overground. Now the Mayor of London has pledged to give its six lines separate names.

In ecology, the most extreme places on earth are undersea vents or the wastes of Antarctica. In place branding? University campuses.

Our posters for London Design Festival celebrate the heroism of firefighters and 150 years of fire brigade design

With soft yet confident linework, these illustrations add a playful note to our new website

Seen as soulless, manicured or too perfect, here’s how brand new developments can win hearts

We dismiss the Metaverse at our peril; find out why at Virtually Everywhere, our exhibition for London Design Festival

Try out our custom tool that generates a different image for any location

Anti-climb paint, armrests and arrowslits are only the beginning of how urban spaces change behaviour

The mantra so ubiquitous that Florida used it twice. Come on, developers, surely we have more to say?

Exposing the tactics of public spaces to welcome and ward off for London Festival of Architecture

Why we’re closing the DNCO studio on 21 June for the first time in 15 years

A cautionary tale of I AMsterdam’s success

Milton Glaser’s beloved ‘I ♥ NY’ logo in the post-emoji world

The benefits and pitfalls of keeping Portland weird

How Drake reminded the city what it was made of

Each of our 32 boroughs has its own logo. But what does this municipal clipart tell us about the capital’s identity?