Placemaking
Creating brands that give places meaning, character, and a clear sense of arrival.
About placemaking
Placemaking sits at the intersection of brand strategy, identity, and experience. It is the process of defining how a place is perceived, navigated, and remembered — often before it is fully built, occupied, or understood.
Clients engage Adams Design for placemaking when a project needs more than visibility. New developments entering competitive markets, mixed-use environments with multiple audiences, and destinations struggling to articulate a cohesive identity all require a brand approach rooted in place rather than promotion.
Our placemaking work establishes the ideas, language, and visual systems that transform locations into destinations — giving people a reason to notice, explore, and return.
Our approach
Placemaking begins with context. We look closely at geography, history, architecture, and cultural adjacency — not to replicate what already exists, but to identify what makes a place distinct within its environment.
From there, we define a central narrative that can unify diverse components: residential, retail, hospitality, public space. This narrative becomes the foundation for identity systems, campaign concepts, environmental graphics, and storytelling across touchpoints.
At The Seaport Hotel, brand strategy focused on clarifying the hotel’s role within a rapidly evolving waterfront neighborhood—balancing approachability with a strong sense of place.
In each case, placemaking provided clarity — allowing every design decision to reinforce a coherent experience of place.
Placemaking as experience
Effective placemaking is experiential rather than declarative. It doesn’t rely on slogans or generic lifestyle imagery. Instead, it shapes how a place feels — through visual cues, tone, rhythm, and restraint.
We develop placemaking systems that guide how people encounter a place over time: from first impression to daily experience. Advertising introduces the idea. Identity systems sustain it. Environmental graphics and digital platforms carry it forward.
Hospitality projects like Sensing Restaurant demonstrate how placemaking can work at an intimate scale — using narrative, atmosphere, and intrigue to turn a hidden location into a destination through storytelling rather than signage alone.
What this work includes
Placemaking engagements often include brand positioning, identity systems, campaign concepts, environmental graphics, signage, and wayfinding, as well as editorial and digital storytelling. These elements are designed as part of a unified system, allowing places to feel cohesive without becoming prescriptive.
Rather than applying a singular aesthetic, we create frameworks that allow places to evolve — supporting leasing, launch, and long-term identity without losing clarity.
This work frequently overlaps with Brand Strategy & Positioning and Brand Identity, ensuring that placemaking is grounded in purpose as well as expression.
If you’re shaping a place that needs definition as much as exposure, we’re always open to a conversation.