There is a recognized need for studying nation-brand related topics. Numerous studies have attempted to explain the importance of promoting nation brand in attracting tourists and investors. Several studies have documented the importance of nation brand. Nation brand is believed to focus on improving the image of a nation-state, which plays a vital role in cultural output and merchandise export and is considered to be a part of the soft power of the country (e.g., Edwards and Usher, 2000; Wheeler, 2009; Dinnie, 2008). This thesis focuses on analyzing the logos of different nation brands of branded countries, especially aims to find the visual elements for the nation brand logos. Previous studies of nation brand logos and nation brand symbols have not dealt with the governmental influence on the symbol adoptions. This thesis could identify the governmental credibility of national symbols in nation brand logo design by observational data. Secondly, It could provide a direct reflection of the designers’ opinions of the governmental-led logo design and a clear contrast between the two sides.

The research methods of this paper are content analysis and qualitative interview. To be specific, this thesis firstly collects the logos of the Government website, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and (or) Trade website as well as the Official Tourism Website. They are the nation brand online carriers with quantitative analysis method to find the national symbol adoption ratio data. Then this paper aims to utilize valuable feedback of the research topic from interviews for discussion. Results showed that, in the first place, the theories in the theoretical study and the data of the empirical study of this thesis examined that national symbols are the most representative visual elements of nation brand logo. In the second place, the governmental preference of national symbols as visual elements in nation brand logo of the government-led design varies with the political nation brand, business nation brand and tourism brand. Coat of arm is the most accepted national symbols to represent the political nation brand and business nation brand for the governments. In contract, there are no outstanding national symbols that have the dominate governmental cognition of representing the tourism nation brand. In the third place, the interview results have identified an strong inquiry of pursuing objectivity in presenting the nation brand logo. Besides objectivity, the designers asked for a s a systemic brand identity for the design of the nation brand logos. A certain degree of “graphic design” is needed.

For those nation brand logos which use multiple national symbols, a further research of analyzing the dominant, subdominant, and subordinate in the nation brand logos could indicate the political attitude towards national symbols in order of importance when they are expressing the same message together. Moreover, the future research of pattern behavior, benchmarking and decision making could help to find the mechanism behind the governmental choices.