City of Franklin,
Indiana

Overview

An unusual scope: redefine, don't redress

Franklin is a small historic city south of Indianapolis — Romanesque Revival courthouse, restored Victorian brick downtown, an Artcraft Theatre marquee that's been lighting up Main Street since 1922, and a recently built downtown amphitheater that anchors a year-round festival calendar. Strong visual DNA, weak visual identity.

The brief was unusual for Revize: client wanted a new logo, a new palette, new typography, and a new website — all of it. Most municipal redesigns inherit a logo and brand they have to design around. Franklin invited a full rebrand. That changes the design problem from “modernize what exists” to “decide what this city should look like next.”

Discovery

Three directions, one decision

For the kickoff I built three concrete brand directions instead of asking the client to describe what they wanted in the abstract. Each direction came with a palette, a reference project, and a one-line philosophy — Heritage Evolved (modernize the seal), Confident Civic (step away from heritage entirely), Distinctive & Warm (lean into the brick downtown and Artcraft Americana).

Client's answer was Direction A — but pushed further than I had drawn it. They wanted to keep the modernized civic feel, drop the gold entirely, and lean cooler: blue + teal as primary, with meadow/lime green and warmth as accents. The clock tower (which I had assumed would anchor the logo) was rejected — they felt it represented the county seat, not Franklin specifically. The amphitheater emerged as the strongest icon candidate.

Logo

A wordmark first, an arch above, a date below

The final mark is a custom geometric sans-serif wordmark, “Franklin,” with an abstract arch element above and the founding date “1823” small below. Stacked and horizontal lockups; full color and B&W variants of each.

The arch is deliberately abstract. Insiders see the amphitheater. Outsiders see a graceful curve. That ambiguity is a feature, not a compromise — it scales for embroidery, prints in a single color, and stays meaningful even when the literal reference fades from public memory. The wordmark, not the icon, leads the identity.

Color System

Two cool primaries, two warm accents

The locked palette is four families — not three, not five. Each runs Light / Main / Dark, giving the system enough range for a full website without sprawl. Blue and Teal carry the primary civic identity; Coral and Honey provide the warmth a small festival-driven city needs.

Coral is Teal's complement on the color wheel. Honey isn't arbitrary — it matches the actual wood color of the amphitheater the brand is built around. The system has reasons for itself, not just preferences.

Typography

Bricolage Grotesque + DM Sans

Heading: Bricolage Grotesque — modern grotesque with subtle distinctive character. Body: DM Sans — clean, civic-warm, highly readable. Both are Google Fonts, so the system stays accessible to the city's in-house team without licensing friction. The pairing was tested across hierarchy levels for two-track readability — display weight for festival event titles, regular for code-of-ordinances density.

System Build

Variables, modes, and a guide that updates itself

The brand was built as a Figma design system from day one. Color variables grouped by family (Color/Brand/blue-*, teal-*, coral-*, honey-*); font-family variables for heading/body; text styles bound to those font variables. The client-facing Brand Guidelines page is wired into the same system — when a token changes, the guide updates with it. That's the difference between a brand presentation and a brand system: one is a deliverable, the other keeps working.

Status

Branding locked. Site in development.

The brand identity — logo, palette, typography, and design system — is locked. The website track is in active design, building on the same system. Calendar-before-news (Franklin is event-driven), large hero with featured background video, glass-blur quick links, footer with a phone-directory button instead of a single number, sticky horizontal nav with utility bar above. Target launch: end of 2026.