Already planning where to travel in 2024? There's one thing you may not have noticed when planning your travels: the typeface of the tourism logos that countries use. The font you choose to promote your destination can have a subconscious impact on how you decide where you end up travelling. It can also tell us how a country sees itself or how it wants to be seen.
In this post, we only look at Europe. 🙂
While the logos of some countries' tourism organisations change with the times, with fashion or with the needs of targeted markets, some stand the test of time remarkably well. The Spanish tourism agency Turespaña, for example, has been using the vibrant Sol de Miró logo designed by Joan Miró for 40 years, since 1983. On Reddit, we can find spectacular maps that allow us to virtually travel around Europe and compare the fonts of different tourism logos.
The above map, recently shared by a user on Reddit named humanasteroid, compares the fonts used in the logos of European tourist offices. The differences are clearly visible within Europe: the Italian font is as vibrant and expressive as the Spanish, while the Greek draws on its classical history. Many of the typefaces chosen by tourism offices in northern and western Europe appear very subdued compared to those in eastern and southern Europe. Modern, minimalist, they let the colours and the message itself do the work.
The comments are also worth reading, some are funny. 😀 "Austria didn't even know you could change the default font", for example, writes one user. Haha.
Meanwhile, another says the Romanian font fits a juice brand. xDD Fair enough.
The map above is recent, but there is a similar one from 3 years ago. This one shows not only the font of the tourist logos, but the entire logos:
If you found this post interesting, click here to see what secrets the logos of big companies hold.
