Every 10 years, the City of Tucson engages its citizens to create a new or updated general plan that guides its investments, programs, policies and land-use decisions. To support the development and implementation of its “Plan Tucson Community Engagement Program,” the city contracted Gordley Group to engage and help identify the community’s priorities. We developed overall branding, messaging and collateral, and collaborated with facilitation of public outreach. Our team also implemented advertising campaigns, created templates, and supported website design. With compelling branding and myriad public engagement methods, the city received over 12,000 meaningful public comments exceeding goals and expectations.
Gordley revisited the city’s brand guidelines to build color palettes to complement the city’s color scheme and have a regional feel. The branding was approved after three rounds of review and edits with the team and was then prepared for public launch via a project website and a public kickoff event in January 2023 with the core message of “It’s Your Plan Tucson.”
Based on the research gathered for the branding development, three mood boards were created. What resulted was the desire to match the overall spirit of Tucson by having Plan Tucson branding be more approachable with an active and light-hearted spirit.
With the feedback garnered on the mood boards, we recommended using an illustrative brand visualization because it gave the ability to have original artwork specific to Tucson and highlight the themes on which the Planning Department wanted to focus. With illustration being the main creative approach, we also reviewed illustration stylings to determine what would work best from small to large scale and what was efficient to illustrate.
The team also helped facilitate discussions at public engagement events. Finally, the Media and Marketing department collaborated with the city’s planning team to plan and launch a paid advertising campaign to promote the kickoff and public engagement events. In total, 10 staff were utilized in various capacities. All service activities were closely monitored to ensure costs were kept within the approved budget.