Generic Icons on the Map

27. December 2010

Generic Icons on the Map

European cities and their branding strategies

A research project by Kathrin Treml | Tutor: Evert Ypma

This research project contextualizes the widespread phenomenon of city branding in a broader social, cultural and political framework. The idea that cities can be packaged and sold as a product is deconstructed via illustrative examples in Kathrin Treml’s clearcut, critical work Generic Icons on the Map. In their relationships with visiting tourists, business communities and investors from outside cities use communication strategies that are centred on economic interests and based on communication attitudes that are similar to commercial practices.


Kathrin Treml recognizes the intrinsic differences between the private nature of branding ideologies and the public nature of democracy and the democratic organization of cities. City governments often advocate a model of citizenship that is based on neo-liberal concepts and this perception of the city leads to prevailing ideas that the city is a commercial enterprise. The cities’ stress on the notion of ‘competition’ within a ranking system of a European or global city network has become a drive and legitimization for city governments and their marketers. The culture of place branding becomes amalgamated in the design of the commonly used but generic image and logo strategies.
The project candidly questions where the actual citizen finds his place within this strict economy of pictures and symbolic exchange. The question emerges whether in those monolithic city brand strategies there is room left for meaningful symbolic exchange based on subjectivity, non-coordinated and interactive expressions and fantasies of what a city is or could be, instead of a set of fixed, prefabricated representations that are designed in such a way that citizens, visitors and stakeholders need to consume only.