Harrogate Town Council
A new civic identity for a town built on nature’s gorgeous framework
Reimagining civic identity
When Harrogate re-established its Town Council in 2025, it marked a quiet but significant renewal — the return of local voice to a town defined by balance, beauty and care.
Our task was to create an identity equal to that character: something rooted in history but attuned to the present, capable of holding both ceremony and openness. A visual system that could serve governance yet live comfortably among gardens, stonework and springs — quietly reinforcing the town’s grace rather than competing with it.
A town built to restore
Harrogate is a place where nature and community interlace — a spa town born of water, health and hospitality. Its very geography seems to breathe, with greenspace woven through streets and crescents and springs running unseen beneath.
The new identity draws from this living ecology. It treats the town not as a brand, but as a system — a living spa, where design becomes part of the natural flow between people, landscape and governance.
Each touchpoint is designed to feel restorative: calm in tone, generous in spacing, grounded in material and mood. It is civic design as atmosphere — a structure that holds rather than commands.
Continuity and renewal
Our starting point was Harrogate’s 1884 coat of arms, long etched into the town’s architecture and consciousness. We redrew the heraldic achievement with precision, restoring its symbolism and dignity for contemporary use.
From that foundation, a second mark emerged — the Crown of Springs, distilled from the coronet of the Arms and reimagined as three rising oak leaves. One embodies continuity; the other renewal.
Together, they create a visual equilibrium between permanence and progression — a dual system that speaks with one voice across council, community and place.
A civic language of balance
The identity was designed to act like an ecosystem: structured yet adaptable, ordered yet alive.
Typography, layout and colour were composed to convey composure and care. Peat Black and Mineral White provide quiet authority, while a single vivid note — Stray Green — introduces optimism and connection.
Green is central to Harrogate’s psychology. It speaks of balance, wellbeing and renewal; it reminds people of what the town has always offered — a sense of breath. Used sparingly, it ties every expression of the identity back to the living landscape.
A civic language of balance
The identity was designed to act like an ecosystem: structured yet adaptable, ordered yet alive.
Typography, layout and colour were composed to convey composure and care. Peat Black and Mineral White provide quiet authority, while a single vivid note — Stray Green — introduces optimism and connection.
Green is central to Harrogate’s psychology. It speaks of balance, wellbeing and renewal; it reminds people of what the town has always offered — a sense of breath. Used sparingly, it ties every expression of the identity back to the living landscape.
