Long a global brand as a winter sports region, Arlberg is now seeking to increase its visibility with an international image mark. The new Arlberg logo for the ski destinations St. Anton am Arlberg, St. Christoph, Stuben, Zürs and Lech was presented at the ITB in Berlin.

Before a crowd of travel journalists, the tourism directors of Lech Zürs, St. Anton am Arlberg and Stuben presented the newly designed word/image mark. The Arlberg, an international symbol of skiing, will in future be represented by a star radiating in five directions and a bold but straight-forward text. The prongs of the star symbolise the region’s locations of Lech, Zürs, Stuben, St. Christoph and St. Anton. In a modernised font, the word/image marks of the individual locations combine into the new Arlberg logo. The shared logo is shown in the colour gold. “The previous text elements of the individual location logos are essentially retained. They were remade to appear younger and adapted to the changed visual situation,” says Martin Ebster, Director of the St. Anton am Arlberg tourism association.
 
Global Brand
The star symbol should in future ensure recognition of the winter sports region as a stand-alone image mark. “Our vision is for the Arlberg international brand to manifest globally in a correspondingly anchored logo,” explains Gerhard Walter, director of tourism for Lech Zürs. The star is associated with quality and top performance in many different ways. “In addition to the symbol for quality and radiance, images from nature also entered into the design, such as the sun, snow, crystals and alpine flora,” says Gerhard Walter. The owner of the new Arlberg brand is Arlberg-Marketing GmbH, a joint company of the five tourism locations. The logo will be used on all advertising materials of the individual tourism associations, effective immediately. Their member operations can integrate the word/image mark into their advertising at no cost according to a licensing process.
 
Marketing power multiplied
With a shared logo, the individual marketing efforts will now be multiplied, say those responsible. “With the Arlberg logo, the whole is definitely more than the sum of its parts. We profit from each other much more strongly than before. Because wherever one of the locations appears, the others are automatically communicated as well through the Arlberg logo. We are convinced that this will add massive weight to the respective marketing activities,” explains Rudi Pichler, director of tourism for Stuben.
 
Top notch competition
The development of the new Arlberg logo took place through a comprehensive process. The project competition was held under the chairmanship of the curator Reinhard Gassner. A seven-person jury of experts, including the star designer from Berlin, Erik Spiekermann, among others, finally selected the design from the Viennese agency Bohatsch Visual Communication.