A Logo for a Nation
When businesses, or nations, invest in branding, they are investing in a dialogue with the audience. Great brands inspire movements.
By Xische Editorial, December 18, 2020
What makes a good nation brand? Last month, we devoted an issue of Backstory to the question of how to build a brand for a nation. In the newsletter (please subscribe here, if you haven’t already), we examined how a brand translates the intangible “why” of a product, organization or nation into a visual mark. When businesses, or nations, invest in branding, they are investing in a dialogue with the audience. Bad brands are ignored. Great brands inspire movements.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid and Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed have now launched an appeal to UAE residents to choose a new logo to represent the nation's journey over the next 50 years. The logo will be used across UAE branding campaigns, marketing and projecting the Emirates' image abroad. Opening up the design decision is a unique way to engage residents on the issue of nation-building. What do we consider when we think about the UAE’s national brand? What values should we project aboard to people that might not have visited the country?
As we review these striking logos (make sure to vote for your favourite!), it's important to step back and think about the achievements we’ve witnessed when it comes to technology, governance, and quality of life. These pillars of society form a critical part of the national story and, by extension, the logo. We’ve built a nation that embraces openness and yearns to be a global leader with a united vision and reverence for tradition. This is the experience we need to highlight in a bold new logo.
Last month, we dug deeply into these pillars to explore the “why” of the nation. We began by reviewing the UAE’s relationship with artificial intelligence (AI), arguably the most important future technology being developed today. Governments around the world are racing to incorporate AI and other future technologies into their governing portfolios. Several reports confirm what we already know about AI in governance; it’s going to make governance better, faster, and more efficient.
Despite the obvious gains, most governments haven’t drafted sensible AI legislation and it’s not because they don’t understand the technology. It stems from the strength of their national identity. There are, however, a handful of countries such as the UAE, Finland, and Estonia that made it a national priority to incorporate future technologies. How they’ve been able to do this speaks more to the narrative of nation-building than the practical step of drafting legislation.
The UAE’s ability to embrace future technologies in every sector of society highlights the country’s remarkable development over the past half-century. Our national logo is a representation of this development. In a short amount of time, the UAE has transformed from a constellation of villages hugging the Arabian Gulf to a world leader in technology, aviation, finance, and tourism. This transformation couldn't have taken place without the clear bonds of unity that define modern Emirati identity. With reverence for the past and an eagerness for the future, the UAE has leveraged the strength of its identity to focus on becoming a flourishing knowledge economy.
Given the pace of technological innovation, smaller countries with strong identities are able to position themselves as leaders more quickly. That’s because there’s a clarity of vision at the root of how these countries view present and future challenges. Without a strong narrative that binds the nation, you don’t have the vision required for the heavy lifting of building the knowledge economy of the future. When you add in that smaller nations are able to push through legislation in a more expedited fashion, the result is the creation of a truly powerful and cohesive nation.
Each of the potential logos highlights various threads in the UAE’s narrative. From the palm trees that have been a critical factor in our settlement in this land to the blocky modern typeface that highlights a pivot towards technology, the logos convey something intrinsic about the UAE in an instant. That taglines also tap into specific nods of the Emirati experience. From the “7 lines” highlighting the “seven emirates, seven leaders shaping our future” to the palm, a “symbol of our giving, strength and belonging” and the Emirates in calligraphy, which captures “when sand dunes merge with ocean waves”, each logo convey something core to the nation’s identity.
For some nations, a logo can be tricky because it could highlight the lack of a clear vision or identity. That is not the case in the UAE, where identity is a strong and driving force pushing the nation forward on a path to further success and innovation. We encourage everyone to vote on their favourite logo and once it is decided to promote it widely. Our logo is a symbol of our strength and unity.
