What makes your place special?

Institute for Identity helps places speak up and stand out. We provide governments and tourism and investment agencies with branding, marketing and communication services.

My place needs a “brand”

We can tell what sets your place apart, and define its core proposition, character and strengths. We will do the visuals ( ), write slogans and texts, make brand materials (
), advise on or run media and social media campaigns. Most importantly, we will get your local community behind this work and show your new face to the world together.

What to expect from working with us

We will take you seriously. We will spend time and effort to understand the culture of your place and the way of life of your people. We will observe and and engage local residents. We will travel all around the place and list its obvious and unobvious assets. We will

test, push and pull to understand the nature of where you are. Then we will create communi-cation products that will reflect it all. You will be able to see, build and communicate the best version of your place. It will stick and resonate, and help you project your genuine voice outwards.

We’ve done core branding. What else can we do?

We can help with unconventional ideas and projects that will use your ‘hidden’ resources. Gastronomy is one of them, and we can help you build and promote regional food to the ever growing market of hungry and curious travellers and buyers. “Made in” brands is another, where you can bring your place out to homes around the world instead of waiting for travellers to waddle in. There can be more: one of our clients is a literature destination.

What is under the bonnet?

Anthropology. A method of understanding societies and cultures that is deeper, more structured and understand-able than a ‘creative impulse’. When you hear of ‘evidence-
based’, ‘story-telling’, ‘stakeholder engagement’ impera-tives and hallmarks of quality – it all boils down to anthro-pology. So we’ve got them covered, and more.

24 Wandsworth Road, London SW8 2JW, UK
+44 751 133 0 144
i@instid.org

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IINSTID is a British company founded in 2012, after years of witnessing lavish and ineffective roadshows by emerging market countries to London City investors. We have specialised in such ‘hard’ cases ever since: not the first echelon mega-cities but smaller, perhaps quieter places that feel lost on the highways of international media, tourism and investment. We give them confi-dence in their own voice and something to hold on to.

We are neither large nor small. We cover all the core competencies that a place branding project may require: strategy, design, digital resources, communi-cation. We answer the phone. We are easy to work with.

We picked quite a few awards on the way, and the media has been curious about us. We also have been invited to professional conferences and sat on jury and expert panels.

what they say

“Over 5 years of partnership with INSTID, our region’s tourist inflow grew from 220,000 to 718,000 in H1 2022 alone” (Lipetsk Tourism Office)

What we have done for others

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People who work in tourism and investment promotion are often the most sincere and dedicated proponents of their place. They want it to look good among the others, and to be successful. They expect competence and dedication from the consultants they employ, as well as the ability to deliver beyond their own organisation’s imagination or capacity. We strive to make our clients proud and confident of what we achieve together. Below are some samples of our work and photos from our field trips.

what they say

“At their most casual, they resemble unusually diligent tourists” (The Guardian)

Granat, Irkutsk, Ketchum Maslow, Krasnodar, Lipetsk Land, Made in Kuban, Mechanica, Minsk,
Neom (for Zaha Hadid Architects), Newgate, New Town Kolkata, Rublevo, Visit Tatarstan, Yerevan.

Typical Case Studies

Discover a region through stories and food recipes

Food is an identity issue, as much as literature, architecture or geography. Literally the essence of the land, it tells about its life, history, struggles and joys, influences and constants. A most visceral expression of the terroir, food is the ultimate place experience. Food tourism is on the rise globally, but the connection between tourism promotion and the gastronomic scene is often not there. How can tourism agencies encourage and support the local food identity?

One answer is by exploring the sources of local food traditions and giving them a modern interpretation. In the Lipetsk region, we scouted the land for time-honoured ingredients and revered home cooks, and then put our findings to two chefs: one local, one a celebrity outsider. They turned them into practical, modern dishes that evoke the spirit of unhurried and happy life – the character of the Lipetsk Land – to homes where they are cooked. A beautiful book of stories and recipes emerged, as a product in its own right, and as a foundation for a comprehensive programme to support local chefs and nurture the local gastronomic industry.

Give Personality to New and Satellite Cities

The satellite city is a particular challenge for place brand designers: bound by gravity to a larger, older city, borrowing some of its lustre, yet eager to generate its own.

In eastern India, the megapolis of Kolkata—once Calcutta—spun New Town into orbit, to be a smart and green hub for investment and technology. New Town positioned itself as the gateway to southeast Asia, and had already attracted a number of technology giants. But its identity remained overshadowed by Kolkata, a city of impossible charm and refined culture but otherwise not a magnet for industry. Even the locals struggled to comprehend New Town: so open and tech-driven in contrast to Kolkata’s narrow, winding terrain – yet still an authentic part of a great city, offering people the urban life and vital connections they want. This conflict set the stage for our work: New Town’s identity needed definition, and its sense of design needed to project its personality and success, both to foreign tech companies, and to its own residents. To design New Town was to design a satellite’s relationship to its planet.

Our approach was local from the start. We went to swanky offices and no-nonsense workrooms; observed a land lottery and street cricket; ate inconspicuous yet delicious street food; got soaked in the monsoon and rode an electric tuk-tuk. Everywhere, we talked: from brief exchanges in the streets to three dozens in-depth interviews with people who made New Town: teachers, academics, business people, doctors, artists, officials. We had to learn what New Town meant for the people who are already there, before we could explain what New Town means for businesses and the planet at large.

The New Town that opened to us was both universalist: seeking a new vision for urban living, where work and life are in balance, and where the human and the planet are in harmony; and yet local, rooted in a deep foundation of Bengali culture and knowledge. We translated this duality into design. A mix of warm and cool colours, all derived from Kolkata’s history, to signal a modernity with firm roots. Photographs that focused on the human scale, rather than impersonal drone shots. Typography and logos that followed simple, rational patterns and grids. Everywhere a sense of balance, openness, and intelligence, the spirit of a good, conscious life.

The results of a design exercise of this kind goes beyond the material, of course. That is to say: they go beyond our brand book, with its set of clean fonts and striking logos; they go beyond our distillation of New Town’s values and character; they go beyond our visual language for New Town.

The chief result, in fact, is a more abstract sense of coherence. For the first time, New Town has a face of its own, looking to Kolkata but not relying upon it. It offers itself as a place for humans to live, rather than a township ordered by fiat and defined by bureaucratic statistics. Our designs have shifted the focus of all communication to New Town’s residents—to their quality of living, and to the value and purpose of an urban life. In a way, our designs have built on Kolkata’s ideas but rethought them for the 21st century—which both links New Town to Kolkata and sets it apart, solving precisely the challenge we were confronted with.

Brand Places with Few Tangible Tourism Assets

Though most people tend to love their place, many often do not think much of it. Let’s face it: few countries have fabulous coasts or magnificent ancient monuments. The lack of no postcard material should not, however, equal lack of interest from the world. Today’s travellers’ treasures are not things but experiences: the vibe, the food, the fashion, the music. The intangibles, of which every place has their own. To “brand” a place is to capture the obvious, which the locals take for granted. It is to clarify and present the spirit of the land.

We navigate the land of intangibles, peoples’ collective consciousness, values, and beliefs with the help of archetypes: characteristic personality traits that we all know intuitively. Each place bears an archetype or an archetypal combination that underpins its identity. Each archetype owns characteristic language and elements of design. By extracting the place archetype and making it apparent through words and visuals, we make the intangible assets of the place сlear and attractive.

The Mother
Visit Tatarstan: Land of 1001 Delights

The Innocent
Lipetsk Land: the Sun in the Palm of Your Hand

The Rebel
Irkutsk: Plug In!

The Sage
Minsk: Think Minsk

The Hero
Krasnodar: Step Up

what they say

“One of the most notable designs of 2018” (Brand New)

Team

Dr Natasha Grand Norman

Director

A trained diplomat with an academic and City of London background, Natasha co-founded and runs INSTID. Her main passion is field research (exploring places and meeting people). A client said: “Natasha’s empathy makes everyone in the room feel and do their best”.

Zoe Kennan

Researcher

Zoe processes vast amounts of data and scours hundreds of websites to spot the gold nuggets of meaning and importance. She combines a fresh brain with the capacity and energy of a nuclear power plant.

Eva Vorontsov

Strategist

Eva is a brand strategist par excellence with over 15 years’ experience traversing the US, Europe and the Middle East. Her calm and assuring manner covers a sharp brain always ready with a pithy comment or a joke.

Sergei Kleshchev

Creative Director

A man of innate intelligence and sense of harmony, with terrific work ethic, Sergei creates honest designs that cut through the noise and give confidence and a pride to brand owners.

Kseniia Mchedlidze

Video Artist, Script Writer and Film Director

For our clients, Ksenia produces short films and video presentations that transform data and facts into engaging and memorable stories.

Cyril Terashchuk

SEO, SMM and IT developer

With an eye for worst-case scenarios and habitual back-up planning, Cyril has our IT back. He creates and runs campaigns to increase our clients’ online presence and visibility.

Nichola Mark

Account Manager




Nichola makes our projects and processes run like clockwork, without ever showing the paddling under the water.

what they say

“The project helps energise the local community”
(City Nation Place Awards High Commendation for Best Design 2018)

Media

Conferences

24 Wandsworth Road, London SW8 2JW, UK
+44 751 133 0 144
i@instid.org

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