North of Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau
Case Study
Travel & Tourism
Destination marketing organizations juggle many challenges. Members, attractions, hotels, meeting venues, residents, and state offices all look to you for leadership. That was the case for North of Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau—and where 3thought came in.
North of Boston is a vibrant, artistic, historic and eclectic community made up of 34 distinct towns. Their CVB had put together a energized team ready to advocate, but their visual brand was letting them down — dated and lacking the flexibility they needed for modern applications.
Deliverables
We developed a new visual identity with refreshed logotypes, a bold and playful color palette, and recognizable “North of Boston” cues. Along with defined visual branding guidelines, we delivered a large suite of practical components including map art, illustrations, and templates. The diversified marketing support team was able to produce a wide range of on-brand materials easing coordination across channels and growing brand recognition.
Our design and production team have armed the CVB with guidebooks, lookbooks, handouts, promotional items, environmental graphics and more so they are able to have the right collateral in the right context.
Results
Since our partnership began, we’ve created multiple campaigns that allowed tailoring to address seasonal needs and smoothing shoulder seasons. Each was designed to accommodate pivots for audience and offerings, while maintaining a consistent message for year-round visitation.
More than deliverables, this was a system that moved travelers from inspiration to action—spotting an ad, grabbing a guidebook, then booking a trip. By aligning every partner and channel, NBCVB built a brand system usable everywhere. Our toolkits integrated seamlessly with existing workflows and vendors, yet remained platform-agnostic, leaving the organization with future-proof creative that’s easy to execute and ready to scale when grants or co-op dollars become available.
Scope of Work:
This work needed to support a destination marketing organization operating across seasonal tourism cycles, multiple municipalities, and a wide range of stakeholders — while maintaining a consistent, recognizable identity across print, digital, and in-market materials.
The solution wasn’t a collection of one-off pieces, but a flexible design system that could be reused, extended, and adapted without losing clarity over time.
Rebranding & Identity
The rebranding work focused on establishing a clear visual language — spanning logos, color, typography, and graphic styles — that could scale across campaigns, partners, and seasons without losing cohesion. This visual language became the backbone for all subsequent campaign work, printed materials, and in-market applications.
Logos
Colors
Typography
Graphic Elements
With the visual identity system in place, the focus shifted from definition to application.
Campaign work is where brand systems are tested in real conditions—across timelines, channels, and competing priorities—and where inconsistencies surface quickly if the foundation isn’t sound.
Campaign Consulting & Digital Marketing
Campaign consulting and digital marketing support grew out of an ongoing role in annual planning—helping shape messaging, campaign themes, and priorities that could be carried consistently across channels.
Rather than treating each campaign as a standalone effort, the work focused on translating annual strategy into cohesive executions across digital, print, and in-market touchpoints—ensuring clarity and continuity as messaging evolved throughout the year.
Campaign work focused on translating strategy into consistent executions across channels—allowing messaging to evolve without fragmenting the brand.
Beyond campaigns, destination teams rely on a core set of materials that need to remain clear, consistent, and usable over time.
3thought supports destination marketing organizations by building systems that hold together across campaigns, seasons, and everyday visitor touchpoints.