CS
Client: Tau Tavengwa (Cityscapes) and Edgar Pieterse (University of Cape Town)
Period: 2023-2024
Sustainable development
Education & knowledge
Design & architecture
01 The sneak-peek
A name for the collective intelligence of African cities
CS is a transdisciplinary collaborative exploring the communal doing and thinking unique to African urbanism. BBA Liminal gave a long-running collaboration its form — a name, a purpose and a digital home — so it could grow into a platform others could join.
02 The liminal moment
Tau Tavengwa and Edgar Pieterse had been cultivating a collaboration for many years. The work was real; what it lacked was a form others could recognise and join. BBA Liminal was asked to run a strategic workshop to give it one — a brand name, a visual identity and a website.
The CityScapes publication sat at the heart of the collaboration, so CS became the name, with CityScapes and all future work living under that umbrella. The threshold was definition: turning a years-long working relationship into an entity with a clear purpose and a face. The deeper task was to name what CS is for — a transdisciplinary collaborative that explores and celebrates the organic intelligence of African cities, grounded in the global south — and to build it a home vibrant enough to do that work justice.
03 The transformation
We put the purpose into words. With the founders, we defined CS's purpose: a transdisciplinary collaborative that explores and showcases the communal doing and thinking unique to African urbanism — investigating and celebrating the organic intelligence of African cities, to grow universal insight that is meaningfully African.
We drew the identity from the cities themselves. We analysed photographs of African cities and drew a palette from them — teal and terracotta, held by black and white — and built the logo mark from the cartographic symbol for a city, keeping CS's focus on African cities at the centre and doubling as a holding shape for images.
We built a home with purpose. To capture what CS does and surface its most impactful past projects, we designed and developed an interactive, mobile-first website — vibrant and graphic, carrying the essence of African cities.
04 The craft
A platform to shape the cities of tomorrow
Named, defined and given a vibrant home: a city-cartography mark that doubles as a frame for images, a palette pulled straight from photographs of African cities, and a mobile-first website built to hold CityScapes and everything that follows.
Magazine
Naming
Brand & communications strategy
Print production
Typography
Digital strategy
Publication & editorial design
Brand identity design
Brand platform development
Positioning & narrative
Purpose architecture
