Yichang City Brand and Cultural Creative Design
The Yichang city IP characters serve as ambassadors for the city’s cultural tourism brand. Each character carries a unique mission, representing Yichang’s distinctive resources and warmly welcoming visitors from around the world.
Innovation Insights

Creating a Cultural Tourism IP for the City
The first step in creating a city cultural tourism IP was to identify suitable cultural symbols and expressive carriers.
These elements needed to present Yichang’s tourism resources through modern and fashionable design while communicating the city’s warmth, friendliness, and hospitality.
The goal was to transform Yichang’s agricultural products, natural environment, cultural traditions, and technological achievements into recognizable and engaging city brand assets.
Yichang Cultural Tourism Brand
The project team classified and organized Yichang’s rich local resources into four major categories: agriculture, nature, culture, and technology.
Each category was evaluated according to its uniqueness, feasibility, public acceptance, and potential for long-term development.
After comprehensive research and comparison, four representative elements were selected as the prototypes for Yichang’s city IP characters:
Zigui navel oranges, the Yangtze finless porpoise, Dragon Boat Festival zongzi, and hydropower energy.
Together, these four elements represent the diversity and unique identity of Yichang’s cultural tourism resources.
Design Strategy

Market Research
The project team conducted in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs, local government and community leaders, residents, and other relevant user groups.
Research was also carried out across tourist attractions, residential communities, innovation centers, and other representative urban spaces.
Through this comprehensive research process, the team analyzed Yichang’s characteristics and personality in relation to its industries, urban development, local communities, and cultural heritage.
The findings provided a clear foundation for the city’s overall brand positioning and IP development.
City IP Strategy
The city IP strategy was based on an in-depth exploration of Yichang’s geography, culture, local history, and traditional stories.
The team carefully considered how the city differed from other destinations and identified the most distinctive local cultural symbols.
Four representative visual elements were extracted and transformed through character design.
The designers gave each character a cute, friendly, and playful appearance while preserving the cultural meaning of the original symbol.
These characters officially became the cultural tourism ambassadors of Yichang, each carrying a specific mission to represent the city and welcome visitors from different regions.

Product Family Insight
The project included systematic planning for the complete product family and its market launch.
The team considered the development sequence of different product lines, the timing of product releases, and the application of the IP across multiple tourism and lifestyle scenarios.
The IP system was designed to support future cultural merchandise, tourism gifts, promotional materials, public installations, digital content, events, and other commercial applications.
This approach helped extend the cultural and commercial value of the city IP beyond its original visual identity.
💡 Solution
1. Comprehensive City Positioning
Through extensive market research and user insight, the project established an accurate and multidimensional positioning for Yichang.
The research covered the city’s industries, natural resources, cultural heritage, tourism experiences, technological achievements, and local lifestyle.
This comprehensive perspective ensured that the final city brand could authentically represent Yichang’s unique identity.
2. Selecting the Right Cultural Carriers
Creating an effective cultural tourism IP requires cultural symbols that are both representative and easy for the public to understand.
The selected elements were transformed through modern and fashionable visual expressions.
They communicate Yichang’s friendly and welcoming character while clearly presenting the distinctive features of the city’s cultural and tourism resources.
3. Four Representative City IP Prototypes
The project team organized Yichang’s resources into agriculture, nature, culture, and technology.
After evaluating their uniqueness, feasibility, public acceptance, and communication potential, four elements were selected as the main city IP prototypes.
The Zigui navel orange represents Yichang’s agricultural resources and local specialties.
The Yangtze finless porpoise represents the city’s natural environment and ecological value.
Dragon Boat Festival zongzi represents local traditions, cultural heritage, and the historical connection with Qu Yuan.
Hydropower energy represents Yichang’s technological development and its important position in China’s water conservancy and energy industries.
4. Cultural Tourism Ambassadors Welcoming Every Visitor
The four representative elements were transformed into distinctive IP characters through professional character design.
Each character was given a cute, charming, and approachable personality to increase emotional appeal and public recognition.
Together, they became the official cultural tourism ambassadors of Yichang.
Each character carries its own cultural mission while collectively presenting the city’s hospitality, diverse resources, and vibrant identity to visitors from around the world.