TownShift logo with the tagline "Suburb into City" set against a colorful background of overlapping curved shapes in purple, blue, green, and yellow.

Townshift, From Suburb to City

Client:
City of Surrey
Date:
2008
Sector:
  • Placemaking
Services:
  • Brand,
  • Strategy,
  • Environmental,
  • Events

An international ideas competition seeking innovative ideas for the future of Surrey.

TownShift brand guidelines showing logo variations, a color palette of swatches, the colorful flower-shaped emblem, and the Helvetica Neue typography.
A printed TownShift competition poster shown at an angle, with a bold headline about an open ideas competition and a row of colorful photo thumbnails.

The aim of the competition was to “Shift” thinking and opportunities for each of 5 “Town” hubs towards more intense, public-minded and productive urban futures.

Cloverdale, Fleetwood, Guildford, Newton, and Semiahmoo were all focused upon with well over 100 entries from all over the world. 

A set of printed TownShift cards or booklets packaged in a box, each featuring the colorful petal-shaped emblem in different color combinations.
A fanned-out array of colorful printed TownShift tags, each in a different color with text naming the various town locations.
An exhibition in a large hall where people view rows of competition entry boards displayed on easels, with a speaker at a podium on the right.
Close-up of the TownShift exhibition showing a row of wooden easels displaying competition entry posters, with visitors viewing them in the background.

Cause+Affect designed the brand and supporting communication materials including print and digital for the initial competition and final exhibition of schemes.

We also designed a physical exhibition of schemes which showed in the central hall of the SFU Surrey campus. 

The competition received such significant attention from the media, development industry and engaged citizens that we were asked to design and produce a set of publications for each location. 

A set of overlapping TownShift "Visions for Surrey" publication covers, one for each town location including Cloverdale, Semiahmoo, Fleetwood and Newton, in different colors.
TownShift publication booklets scattered on a surface, each cover featuring the outlined petal emblem in a different color such as magenta, blue, orange and green.
An open TownShift publication showing an interior spread with a photo and text, surrounded by several closed booklets with colorful petal-emblem covers.

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