Identity proposal 2026

Come as many.
Move as one.

Culture, nature and a city of many stories.
Find where yours begins.

WHERE WE MEET.

Explore the identity The economic case
Destination Tshwane stationery and visitor materials: letterhead, visitor guide, business cards, delegate badge and an experience card, produced from the canonical master files.
ONE IDEA. MANY WAYS TO MEET.01 / Proposition02 / Making of the Y03 / Identity04 / System05 / Application06 / Identity in the city07 / People08 / 30 Years09 / Economic role10 / Adoption

01 / The proposition

A destination identity with civic reach.

Difference is
our starting point.
Meeting is our
shared direction.

The idea. Tshwane is a meeting place, not a single landmark. The Y shows many paths arriving at one centre and moving on together.

Tshwane holds many stories. Its identity needs to make room for them.

A single landmark can describe an attraction. An organising idea can connect a destination: residents and visitors, heritage and new thinking, institutions and everyday life.

The geometric Y turns that idea into a repeatable visual behaviour. Distinct paths approach a shared centre and continue in a common direction.

Read the strategic case
01

Observe

Landmarks, people, rivers and journeys provide a rich visual vocabulary.

02

Reduce

Keep the behaviour that connects them: approach, encounter, continuation.

03

Resolve

A restrained Y holds the idea. The wider system carries the many stories.

Positioning · strategic territory

“For visitors, delegates and residents, Tshwane is South Africa’s meeting place: the capital where the country’s institutions, heritage, nature and people come together within one metro.”

For decisions and partners; not published as copy. How it was tested.

Payoff · public

WHERE WE MEET.

Short and repeatable. Campaign lines such as Meet the capital. extend it; they never replace it.

The making of the Y shows each step in new explanatory studies made in September 2026.

02 / The making of the Y

A visual case study · September 2026

How a place
informs a symbol.

Tshwane, place, connection, convergence, meeting, abstraction, the Y, where we meet. Each step says what is evidence, what is interpretation and what is design, and why the mark became simpler as it was refined.

Sources and a fact / interpretation / proposal table are in the full rationale.

01 · Tshwane

Tshwane is a city
of convergence.

  • Rivers leave the city and meet. Mapped below · OpenStreetMap
  • People meet.
  • Languages meet. Census 2011 · Stats SA
  • Government meets.
  • Nature and city meet.
  • South Africa meets the world.
  • Where we meet.

02 · Place

Two rivers approach.
One continues.

Rivers that run through Tshwane meet about 60 km north of Pretoria’s city centre, beyond the metro’s northern boundary. OpenStreetMap records the junction. It shows the behaviour this identity is built on: separate paths arriving at one point and leaving as one.

Mapped waterways at the Moretele and Pienaarsrivier junction OpenStreetMap river centre-lines, north up. Moretele approaches the junction at 25.1736127°S, 28.1104284°E from the south, Pienaarsrivier approaches from the east, and Moretele continues west.

Real map: mapped river centre-lines from OpenStreetMap, north up, with latitude and longitude lines.

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database Licence (ODbL). Ways 442829249, 442829261 and 442829251, retrieved 19 September 2026. This is open community data, not surveyed hydrology.

The mapped relationship

  • Moretele approaches from the south.
  • Pienaarsrivier approaches from the east.
  • Moretele continues west.
  • Names as labelled in OpenStreetMap. Published river descriptions call the southern approach the Apies River, which flows through central Pretoria.

Junction · 25.174°S, 28.110°E

03 · Connection, measured

Between the two approaches
≈78°
Continuing path, off straight-through
≈20°
General directions
168° · 90° · 289°

Bearing from the junction to the first mapped point 2 km away along each river. Method and values are in junction-measurements.json.

An honest boundary.

The real junction is angled and uneven. It does not look like the upright logo. Rotating it, balancing the arms and straightening the stem are design decisions, shown step by step below. The junction itself lies north of Makapanstad, outside the metro; the rivers pass through Tshwane before they meet.

The geography supplied the behaviour.
Design supplied the discipline.

04 · Convergence

The flag provides a national grammar.The land provides the evidence.The Y is where they meet.

National flag of South Africa, drawn from the Schedule 1 construction
Left: the flag, drawn from its constitutional description; colours are screen approximations. Right: the centre lines of the Y-shaped band only.

“The centre lines of the band start in the top and bottom corners next to the flag post, converge in the centre of the flag, and continue horizontally to the middle of the free edge.”

Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, Schedule 1: National flag

“…can be interpreted as the convergence of diverse elements within South African society, taking the road ahead in unity.”

South African Government, National flag

The Tshwane mark is not a redraw of the South African flag.

  • Shared: a grammar of convergence. Separate lines meet and continue as one.
  • Not shared: the flag’s horizontal orientation, band proportions and hoist triangle.
  • Colour: the Y’s green and gold also appear in the flag. Here they are brand colours, chosen for contrast alongside purple and silver. The Government notes that “no universal symbolism should be attached to any of the colours”, and this proposal attaches no flag meaning to them.

05 · Meeting

A name with more
than one story.

Accounts of where the name Tshwane comes from differ. This proposal doesn’t depend on any of them, and makes no claim that the name means “rivers” or anything else.

Languages in the City of Tshwane · Census 2011

Share of residents by first language, as listed in Statistics South Africa’s City of Tshwane profile. Eleven spoken languages and Sign Language are recorded.

  1. Sepedi19.4%
  2. Afrikaans18.4%
  3. Setswana14.7%
  4. English8.4%
  5. Xitsonga8.4%
  6. isiZulu8.3%
  7. isiNdebele5.6%
  8. Sesotho5.1%
  9. Tshivenda2.3%
  10. isiXhosa2.1%
  11. SiSwati1.5%
  12. Sign Language0.3%
  13. Other3%
  14. Not applicable2.4%
Source: Statistics South Africa, City of Tshwane profile , Census 2011. Values as published; not updated to later surveys.

Internal reference

KOPANO

union · gathering · coming together

A word used in Sotho–Tswana languages, kept here as an internal reference for the idea of meeting, to be confirmed with a language specialist before any public use. It isn’t a translation of Tshwane or a proposed name.

The public proposition stays
WHERE WE MEET.

06 · Abstraction

The designer’s table.

New explanatory design studies — September 2026

Made for this proposal to show the reasoning behind the mark. They are not historical sketches from the original design process. Tap a study to look closer.

New explanatory design study — September 2026

Study

07 · The Y

Geography geometry

Slide from the mapped rivers to the mark. Every change between them is a design decision, and the numbers show how large each one is.

From mapped rivers to the geometric Y
River lines © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL. Mark: digital reconstruction of the original Y.
Stage
Map evidence
Meanders
Kept, as mapped
Rotation
0° · north-up
Angle between arms
78°
Continuing path vs straight down
Not yet vertical
  1. Simplify. Replace the meanders with straight lines along each river’s general direction.
  2. Rotate 129° anticlockwise. Both approaches now open upward. The drawing is no longer north-up.
  3. Balance. Open the arms from 78° to about 86°, even on both sides of the vertical, and straighten the continuing path by 20°.
  4. Resolve. Separate forms, a light meeting space and a vertical stem give the idea the discipline of a symbol.

08 · Where we meet

Three fields.
One form.

Geography

Confluence. Water. Movement.

Nation

Convergence. Unity. Forward movement.

Destination

Meeting. Arrival. Exchange.

The geometric Y

WHERE WE MEET.

An explanatory sequence. The mark’s parts aren’t assigned to individual fields, communities or colours.

Optional · try it

Trace the
convergence.

Drag from each dot toward the centre, or press a dot to draw its path. Nothing here is needed to follow the proposal.

0 of 3 paths traced.

03 / The identity

One mark. A clear argument.

The meeting
made visible.

Select a detail to read the geometry.

The geometric Y: purple and gold arms, a silver triangular meeting space and a green tapered stem
Digital rendering of the original Y.

A mapped river junction informs the idea of convergence; the mark is a designed form, not a tracing of it. No name-origin claim is made.

A practical test

Small mark. Same idea.

Vector geometry stays sharp at every screen size.

Mark at 16 pixels
16 px
Mark at 32 pixels
32 px
Mark at 64 pixels
64 px
Mark at 96 pixels
96 px

Digital vector reconstruction. Approve its geometry and print specifications before adopting it as the production master.

04 / The system

Built to belong in more than one place.

One identity.
Many expressions.

A consistent mark anchors the system. Colour, typography, imagery and language give each story its own register.

Destination Tshwane. Where we meet. Primary lockup in full colour.
A / Full colourThe approved lockup, from the canonical file. Light grounds only.
Destination Tshwane. Where we meet. Primary lockup in white.
B / WhiteFor every dark ground and photograph.

Rules

Consistency gives
the idea strength.

Geometry
Preserve the silhouette and the relationship between its parts.
Clear space
At least one stem-width on every side.
Colour
Four colours keep the parts distinct: purple and gold arms, a silver meeting space and a green stem. Gold highlights moments of arrival and action.
Reproduction
Use an approved single-colour master where production requires it.
The full logo suite and standards Identity review kit

The final identity system

The form carries the meaning.Colour keeps the paths distinct.

Construction of the geometric Y 43°43°arms about 65–75stem 76 2224181818 the meeting space stem axis 246arm axes meet at 247.1
Construction grid: 50-unit modules over the 500 × 565 artboard.
Arms
About 43° from vertical on each side, ≈86° apart; about 65–75 units wide (they taper).
Stem
76 units wide, vertical, with a pointed terminal.
Centre spacing
Gaps of about 18–24 units keep the four forms separate.
Negative space
The silver triangle is a filled form, not a hole: the meeting space.
Optical correction
One reconstruction error corrected on 27 September 2026: the gold arm’s inner edge now matches the original artwork (overlap 97.9%). Nothing else is adjusted; the approved geometry is locked.

Measured on the canonical master (500 × 565 units), verified against the original artwork.

  • Secondary lockup: Destination Tshwane. Where we meet.

    Secondary lockupHeaders, banners, credentials.

  • Vertical lockup: Destination Tshwane.

    Vertical lockupBanners, pylons, covers, where the payoff appears nearby.

  • Monochrome mark

    MonochromeSingle-colour print, embroidery, engraving.

  • Proposed app iconDestination Tshwane

    Favicon and app icon96, 48 and 16 px.

  • Mobile-scale mark28 px in an app header.

Brand colours · the four parts of the Y

Purple · left arm#553179Headings, dark grounds, continuity.
Gold · right arm#E9AE2CHighlights, arrival, calls to action.
Silver · meeting space#ABACAENeutral ground between the arms.
Green · stem#2D625CThe continuing path; secondary grounds.

Website colours

Deep purple#231148
Meeting cream#F6F1ED
Ink#15102B

The colours are functional choices for contrast and recognition, adopted from the original 30-year artwork and kept for contrast. No cultural or flag meaning is attached to them. Print specifications require proofing against the final vector master.

Brand architecture · proposed

Master
Destination Tshwane Y · WHERE WE MEET.
Experiences
Destination Tshwane | Nature, Wildlife, Family, Heritage, Diplomacy, Culture, Events, Nightlife, Business, Education, Food, Sport. One lockup, five colour families.
Campaign lines
Meet culture · Meet nature · Meet history · Meet wildlife · Meet the capital · Meet the night · Meet the people · Meet possibility. They extend the payoff; they never replace it.
Partner endorsement
“[Business name] · Part of Destination Tshwane”, used with permission
Time-bound extensions
30 Years (2026). Sits beside the master, never instead of it.
AI-generated concept: four friends at a café table under flowering jacarandas.

Culture

Meet culture.

AI-generated concept: a white rhino grazing in golden bushveld grass at sunset.

Wildlife

Meet wildlife.

AI-generated concept: a team discussing a robotics prototype in a bright innovation lab.

Education

Meet possibility.

05 / Application

Schematic studies

Built to stand
upright.

A vertical mark suits the places a destination is met: poles, pylons, phones and lanyards.

A capital identity should live where the capital’s business is done.

Schematic application studies drawn for this proposal. They are not photographs, real locations or approved signage. The flat arrow is the Y turned upside down.

08 / 30 Years

A temporary extension · 1996–2026

Thirty years.
The master stays.

A temporary expression marking 30 years since South Africa’s Constitution was adopted in 1996. The numeral borrows the Y’s colours and clipped geometry. Presidents take the constitutional oath of office at the Union Buildings, which makes Tshwane a natural host for the anniversary. When 2026 ends, the master identity carries on unchanged.

  1. The master Y

    01 · Master identityPermanent. Never replaced.

  2. 02 · SystemColour and clipped geometry, shared.

  3. The 30-year lockup, built from the approved example: the canonical Y beside a large 30 in purple, gold and green, with Destination Tshwane and Where we meet.

    03 · 30-year expressionTemporary. Sits beside the Y, never instead of it.

Two boulevard banners: the white commemorative lockup on deep purple with Thirty years of the Constitution, and the 30 numeral on cream with the compact lockup.
Boulevard banners
Social posts and a story for the 30-year campaign, each carrying the compact or commemorative lockup.
Digital campaign

The approved 30-year example, and the commemorative system built from it: canonical Y, traced numeral, Destination Tshwane line and payoff.

09 / Economic role

Recognition that
opens doors.

The mark creates shared recognition. Its applications should help visitors discover the people and businesses behind the destination.

The identity makes the destination recognisable. The platform turns that recognition into a next step that reaches a local business.

  1. VisitorRecognises the destination through the identity.
  2. ExperienceFinds a place, event or tour worth the trip.
  3. Local operatorA verified, named business behind it.
  4. Enquiry / bookingCounted separately. A click is not a sale.
  5. SpendReported only when the operator confirms it.
  6. Return visitInvited back, with consent.

Ask the destination.

Each question opens the visitor prototype. The first works today; the rest show what a pilot must add first, and the prototype says so.

01 / Participation

A shared identity, local names.

A proposed partner kit gives small operators usable signage, listing and event templates while keeping their own names visible. Participation criteria and permission govern use.

02 / Discovery

Every touchpoint has a next step.

Wayfinding and campaign materials point to a relevant operator, experience or current offer. Digital links and QR codes should lead directly to useful information.

03 / Accountability

Measure adoption and referrals.

Test recognition, count active participating businesses and measure enquiries from campaign touchpoints. Do not present visual impressions as visitor spend.

AI-generated concept: a ceramic craft entrepreneur discussing her work with visitors.
Local enterprise and visitor connection. No named operator is depicted.
Read the economic requirements See the website’s role

How success is measured · proposed

Rollout Validate 90-day pilot partner service transactions

10 / The case for adoption

A mark that connects.
A system that serves.

Why adopt it:

  1. One idea that fits every part of Tshwane.
  2. A mark with an open design record.
  3. A system partners can use under their own names.
  4. A working visitor prototype, not only a promise.
  5. A 90-day pilot measured by operator-confirmed results.
Open the proposal Download rationale The making of the Y (PDF) Concept imagery
Destination Tshwane. Where we meet.