City of Reykjavík brand guidelines

Freedam's take

I like encountering civic design documentation that brings a sense of personality to municipal tools. For the City of Reykjavík, their system Hanna serves as a design handbook for digital projects. The landing view introduces the system alongside illustrated poses of a blue-haired character on the right, which gives a friendly, approachable touch to an otherwise structured guide. Across the top, clear navigation lays out sections like Pillars, Practices, Design Standards, and Modules, complemented by an active search tool and a language link back to Icelandic.

At a glance

Sections

Íslenska · Pillars · Practices · Design Standards · Modules · Blocks & Shapes · Toolkit

Tone

A welcoming, structured design system handbook tailored for municipal digital tasks.

What I noticed

1. The Reykjavík logo is placed in the top left navigation bar.¹
2. Top navigation links to Íslenska, Pillars, Practices, Design Standards, Modules, Blocks & Shapes, Toolkit, and a search tool.^2345678910
3. The hero area features three illustrated poses of a character with short blue hair and glasses in a blue dress.¹¹
4. The documentation platform is built with zeroheight.¹²¹³

Numbers refer to the screenshots above.

Ideas to borrow

1. Pairing a friendly mascot or illustrated character with digital design system documentation can make municipal standards feel approachable.¹¹