Graphic

Heartland is one of Canada’s largest power centers, bringing together retail shops and specialty services in one convenient location. With over 190 storefronts occupying 2 million square feet of real estate, Heartland is the ultimate destination to shop, eat, and work. Located in Mississauga, this power center attracts countless visitors per day due to its proximity to residential, industrial, and office buildings.

Orlando Corporation approached Vanderbrand to deliver a rebrand for Heartland that would revitalize one of the most iconic districts in the city. The repositioning of Heartland as a landmark destination acts as a catalyst for growth by creating opportunities for new tenants and visitors alike.

Retaining the Heartland name and its brand equity, the new wordmark sits forward and sets in a bold sans serif typeface which grounds the mark horizontally. The wordmark combines with the icon that features abstracted shapes based on a lowercase H. It represents the storefronts and architectural motifs found in Heartland, as the precinct is well known for being an open concept neighborhood with high-profile street-front retail locations. This combination creates a foundation for a distinctive visual language.

Heartland and the surrounding area are home to major corporations, flagship stores, small businesses, and new-to-market concept stores. It was fundamental to develop a new brand message for the neighborhood to inspire a broader audience and welcome everybody. Vanderbrand established “It’s all here” as a simple statement to capture that feature from Heartland; while also highlighting Heartland as a preeminent destination.
A spectrum of colors captures the attention of new and old visitors and brings vibrancy and energy back to Heartland. A flexible system of bold color pairings and expressive compositions expands across various applications and establishes a unified brand presence.

As part of the rebrand, it was crucial to generate excitement and create an optimistic brand narrative with the reopening of Heartland after months of city-wide closures. The graphic language exaggerates the clean geometry of the icon by using it at a super-scale size, often at different proportions, to create vibrant blocks of color and allow for visual dynamism across Heartland’s visual communications.