Visual Identity for the City of Rotterdam

The visual identity for the City of Rotterdam was developed in 1972 by graphic designers Wim Crouwel and Eli Gross. The project was developed also with Jolijn van de Wouw as team lead, with John Stegmeyer also involved in the project. Ben Bos wrote in his book about Total Design (Bos, Ben. TD 63–73: Total Design and Its Pioneering Role in Graphic Design. Volume 22 of Unit. London: Unit Editions, 2015) : 

Eli Gross played a prominent role in the design of the symbol.

At the center of the identity was a geometric abstraction of the map of Rotterdam, reducing the city’s urban structure and the river that defines it to a series of hexagonal forms. The resulting symbol translated the physical geography of the city into a concise and highly abstract graphic language.

What was particularly innovative for the early 1970s was the logo’s dynamic application. The river was treated as a separate element within the system, allowing the identity to appear in a larger version incorporating the river, or in a more compact version without it. The logo was therefore not conceived as one fixed form, but as a flexible system that could adapt to different formats and contexts while retaining its visual identity.

This approach reflected the systematic and functional thinking associated with Total Design at the time. Rather than simply creating a symbolic representation of Rotterdam, the designers developed a visual language in which geography, abstraction and application were integrated into a single identity system.