The Georgetown Metropolitan

Today, the BID is rolling out its new branding strategy, a culmination of a year-long effort by the BID’s consultant, the Roan Group (and actually the roots of it go back even further). Get ready to start seeing the above image around everywhere.

The brand itself has a couple of elements. First of all, it obviously puts the neighborhood’s name front and center. When the name itself already has such cache, it just makes marketing sense to let it carry the bulk of the weight. What’s interesting about the typeset is that it is a fairly sleek, sans-serif font. GM attended a presentation by the BID of the new brand, and they explained that they considered more “historical” looking typesets, but found that they were hard to read from a distance.

Carrying the “historical” flag for the brand are the curlicues, which are meant to reflect an old calligrapher’s work. Also, in what is GM’s favorite element of the brand, a bright red star sits at the top. It is meant to represent the star bolts that you see around Georgetown, like this:

There’s actually a funny irony in choosing this symbol. These bolts were used to shore up old brick walls when they started to bulge out under their own weight. A bit like Georgetown straining under the weight of its reputation.

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