On a public competition, the participatory budgeting project for the City of Dubrovnik got a new name, slogan and visual identity which will serve as the interactive communication framework of this great initiative

DURA – Dubrovnik Development Agency started a very interesting and worthy project of participatory budgeting. This project framework will empower citizens to – apart from support in ideating – directly suggest, vote for, get financing and execution of their initiatives for improving Dubrovnik.

Our solution, created in cooperation with Maro Pitarević and selected as the winner of the competition, is based on the concept of dialogue. We’re opening the dialogue between Dubrovnik tradition and future; the tradition of a republic as res publicae or public cause and this institutional initiative which enables the individual to voice ideas important for the community and in this way actively make the future better. (Inter)action is a second keyword of our concept. Ideas without engagement and execution are worth little. Our visual code is therefore black & white with intervening bursts of colours suggesting action and activation.

The name “for a better City” in Croatian uses Dubrovnik local linguistics and provokes dialogue by asking: “what would you do for a better City?” By using blank lines in front of the name of the project visual design inspires proactive thinking which happens in a stylised area of the letter “D”.

The slogan, written in first person to motivate more aims to disarm all those who are sceptical and think that, no matter how great their ideas are, the system will not recognise them. This slogan, as well as the entire visual system, wants to tell them that their particular idea has a good chance of coming true.