Belfast Healthy Cities
A new identity for an organisation to spark change
Belfast Healthy Cities is a non-profit committed to improving the health and wellbeing of people living and working in Belfast. As a member of the World Health Organization’s European Healthy Cities Network, they operate at the intersection of government, public services, and the voluntary and community sectors — shaping healthy public policy, championing equity, and driving change through collaboration. Within that network, they’re regarded as a leading example. An organisation others look to.
The problem
The brand hadn’t kept pace with the organisation. The existing logo still carried the wrong name — Belfast Healthy City, not Cities — a small detail, but one that spoke to a larger disconnect between how BHC presented itself and who it had become. A single, rigid lockup offered no flexibility across touchpoints. Inconsistencies had crept in. The visual identity, as it stood, wasn’t built for the reach or the ambition of the work behind it.
BHC was also entering a new phase of the WHO framework — a natural moment to draw a line and move forward with clarity.
The process
We started by listening. Eight stakeholder groups were engaged across internal workshops and a programme of internal and external questionnaires in an effort to understand not just what BHC did, but what it stood for, and what the people closest to it needed from a rebrand.
Across those conversations, a clear picture emerged. BHC’s role isn’t to deliver health outcomes directly — it’s to spark them. To bring the right people together and set things in motion. That insight became the creative foundation everything else was built on. The brief wasn’t just to modernise a visual identity. It was to build one that finally reflected the energy, reach, and optimism of the organisation behind it.
Marking a new era
The identity is built around a new mark — a radiating form made up of seven segments, each mapping to one of the seven areas in which BHC operates. It draws from two references simultaneously: the energy of a spark, and the Phase VII wheel that underpins BHC’s current work. The colours echo that framework too.
There’s warmth in the form as well as energy. The nod to a childhood pinwheel is intentional — human and accessible, as at home in a school or community setting as it is in a formal report. It reflects something true about BHC: an organisation that believes in what cities can become.
Cohesive and flexible across every touchpoint
The wider system was built for flexibility. A considered colour palette that leaves room for versatile design, a flexible typographic system, and a full suite of templates — documents, reports, social graphics, presentations, email signatures, signage, and prop boards — give the team the tools to show up consistently at every scale. Motion graphics film work brings the messaging, stories and logo design to life.
Special thanks
A sincere thank you to the team at Belfast Healthy Cities. Their openness throughout the process — across workshops, questionnaires, and countless conversations — made this possible. They brought honesty, generosity, and genuine enthusiasm to every stage of the work.