For years, a message inviting people to “Be Part of the Energy,’ welcomed drivers as they entered the City of Calgary.

But now, the city is embracing a new slogan and a new visual identity, under the phrase “Blue Sky City.” The civic brand refresh unveiled at this summer’s Calgary Stampede was chosen to recognize Calgary having more sunny days than any other city in Canada, as well as to represent blue-sky thinking and innovation, and the universal idea that the sky belongs to everyone.

The design agency who helped bring this creative to life is Daughter, and the agency’s partner and CEO Stephanie Kochorek notes these factors brought together an economic, diversity and tourism angle. She adds that now was the right time for the refresh to find a new civic identity that better aligned with how Calgarians view their city.

“Identity evolves the same way it does for people,” Kochorek tells strategy. “We have changed incredibly in the last 10 years, and our identity just didn’t jive. There just wasn’t resonance between how we were being seen and who we actually are.”

Initial work on a brand refresh for the city began in 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic put that work on hold. Calgary Economic Development and Tourism Calgary, while working with the city, undertook that effort once again in 2022. The time was right for a new identity, as research the organizations conducted found that the city’s former slogan, which directly references Alberta’s oil industry, didn’t resonate with Calgarians or people outside of Alberta. 

The phrase “Blue Sky City” represents a message that came through often in consultation sessions about Calgary being a city full of possibilities, and a place where people help one another, as seen in how the city responded to disastrous flooding in 2013, says Calgary Economic Development vice-president of marketing and communications, strategy and strategic alliances Geraldine Anderson.

“We really wanted this brand to be inspirational, but also aspirational so it has some longevity. The reason we undertook this work is because of all the engagement done at the time was clear that there was a brand refresh needed for one that was more inclusive that spoke to all Calgarians,” Anderson says.

Daughter came aboard to work on the new design last year, and the overall creative development process was informed by direct community engagement through workshops, cross-country focus groups and surveys, testing out elements of the identity extensively throughout the process. The partners involved in the new design spoke to 129 organizations in direct consultation, to ensure the result of their work reflected what they heard from the community.

“In our first workshops when we talked about ‘Blue Sky City,’ one of the things we noticed is all of a sudden, people started talking about their ‘Blue Sky City’ moment,” Daughter chief creative officer Keli Pollock adds. “So we knew we were on the right track, because we were stress testing it as we went along.”

The corresponding design to the “Blue Sky City” was inspired by beadwork, which symbolizes Calgary being a place where people, lands, cultures and ideas come together, with each bead representing the story of individual Calgarians. Daughter also widened the city’s colour palette to include blue and yellow along with continuing to use red in the visual identity. The new design is also open source with a public microsite that groups can access to use components of the work, with the design made to be scalable for a wide range of other partners to use. A toolkit was also supplied to many civic partners providing access to visuals that allows them to integrate the branding into their own processes.

The city’s new logo and visual elements will be shared at community events in the coming months, with the city also working on corresponding signage. Calgary Economic Development and Tourism Calgary are developing national and international marketing campaigns for the new brand, in an effort to attract more visitors, companies and talent to the city. Daughter also hopes to continue working with partners about incorporating the branding, so it’s something groups all around the city feel they can own.

Kochorek adds that she hopes the new identity for the city represents a sense of opportunity both for its citizens and those who may visit or think of moving to Calgary.

“For Calgarians and people who are thinking of where they want to build, settle down and create a life, it’s that sense that this is a place to come do that,” Kochorek says. 

“It’s this refusal to be pegged in or fixed to something. Blue sky thinking, the ‘Blue Sky City,’ to me, that can mean whatever we need it to mean, that can grow with iterations of the city as it evolves, because it’s future-facing. It’s about what’s next for us.”