Seattle Southside gets a new lick of paint, shrinking attractions into type

When you’re advertising a tourist destination, it can be easy to pile on the superlatives – the biggest, oldest or best. Going on a slightly different route is One Twenty Three West (123w) from Toronto; the agency has just worked with Seattle Southside’s Regional Tourism Authority on a new identity and tourism campaign. Rather than highlighting just one landmark, 123w chooses to spotlight a sea of smaller, unique attractions, so that every visit to Seattle Southside might look different, depending on the visitor.

Seattle Southside’s three cities – SeaTac, Tukwila and Des Moines – are represented first in a new logo. 123w splits an S form into three interlinking forms of separate colours, with each denoting a different city.

The logo also functions as a framework for further playful typographic explorations, each referencing a different attraction in Seattle Southside. These adaptations allow a range of places to be amplified at the centre of the brand. It’s a playful touch, and we get to see how 123w simplifies a farmers’ market and bowling alley into its simplest parts.

The project features a series of videos that riff on the concept of the microadventure. Perhaps the best is the micro toiletry travel kit, complete with comb and toothbrush, in line with some of the wonderful work in miniature we’ve seen circulating online of late. 123w agency has also created a content series called A guide to microadventures in a few microseconds, offering fun-sized travel guides.

123w designer Jake Lim shares further context on the design direction: “So much of tourism marketing can be oversaturated with photography that can lack a sense of distinction and real identity. So, all the choices in branding from colours to typography to embracing illustration let us jump out from the crowd while also highlighting the unique, left-of-centre character of the region.”