The Visual Identity of Cairo as the Capital City of Egypt (An Experimental Study of Suggested Design Samples)

Visual identity plays a major role in distinguishing the personality of the entity it represents, and it also plays a major role in highlighting the core values of this entity. From here comes the importance of the visual identity of the various cities of Egypt, which highlights the cultural and historical values of the Egyptian cities, which are characterized by heritage and diversity, and with this the recipient needs to build a visual culture familiar with this heritage in order to build a distinctive Egyptian identity that works as an ambassador for the Egyptian state around the world. Hence the current study, as the researcher seeks to design a visual identity for the city of Cairo that derives its vocabulary from the most important cultural elements that characterize the city as an important civilized, cultural, and historical center, through implementing a set of design experiments for the city of Cairo’s logo that expresses its cultural identity, then analyzing it visually. It focuses on the visual elements used to present a visual identity of Cairo, and achieves a kind of distinction for the visual identity of Cairo as the capital of Egypt. The research problem is represented in how to design a logo for the city of Cairo that constitutes its visual identity as the capital of Egypt, so that it expresses its cultural & historical identity through the use of various design elements and vocabulary derived from both ancient Egyptian civilization and its modern and contemporary cultural elements in order to achieve a unique visual identity. The importance of the research comes from the fact that creating a distinctive visual identity for the city of Cairo works to consolidate the cultural identity of Cairo, which works to develop the mental image of the city of Cairo internally and externally, which helps to better place it on the global map as both civilizational and contemporary cultural center that expresses the Egyptian state and reflects its cultural image. The research follows the experimental approach in designing proposed models for the City of Cairo logo that reflects the visual identity of the city using various design elements and vocabulary, followed by the use of the analytical approach in visually analyzing the proposed design models to determine the visual vocabulary used, and how to employ them in order to achieve a distinctive visual identity that well expresses the city of Cairo. Through the theoretical framework and the design experiments presented by the researcher, a set of results can be reached, the most important of which are: 1- The design of the visual identity of the city of Cairo can be based on the use of vocabulary and visual symbols drawn from ancient Egyptian civilization, while mixing them with visual and cultural vocabulary from the environment of contemporary Cairo, without causing any defect in the visual identity of Cairo, and even supporting the idea of the continuing civilization and the cultural and civilizational growth of the city of Cairo through different eras. 2- There are many vocabulary and visual elements that characterize the city of Cairo, which can easily be used in designing the visual identity of the city of Cairo without resulting in any similarity between it and any of the other identities that work to highlight the cultural values that distinguish the visual identity of the city. 3-There are color groups that characterize the visual elements of Cairo, represented by the sand yellow color, the blue color, and the green color, which express the components of the external environment of the city of Cairo. There are also other color groups that express the Egyptian identity, which mostly overlap with the colors of the contemporary environment of the city of Cairo, which are colors that the ancient Egyptian artist used to color all the elements that related to his identity. The most important of these colors are red, blue, green and yellow, along with white and black. In conclusion, designing the visual identity of the city of Cairo requires an in-depth study of the historical and cultural references to visual symbols in Egypt across civilizations and relying on them when designing the visual identity of the city of Cairo, in addition to studying the visual vocabulary of the contemporary Egyptian environment, and studying the possibility of linking them to obtain a design of a visual identity that expresses the city of Cairo that has a rich cultural heritage.