Visitors and Calgarians alike will notice a big change when it comes to the city’s branding, as the old Be Part of the Energy signs are retired in favour of the current slogan of Blue Sky City.

Although the launch of that branding campaign happened in July 2024, it has taken until this spring to replace the former city entry signs with the new blue.

Jeff Hessel, Senior Vice President for Marketing and Destination Development at Tourism Calgary said the importance of the new signage on major entry points into Calgary was that it was the first point of contact that many would have with the city’s new brand.

“As people interact with Calgary, they are starting to see more and more Blue Sky City and information and stories related to Blue Sky City. The city signs are just a great symbol of our city’s brand.”

He said that the signs as travellers pass them at highway speeds, were at best a quick hit of the branding, but it adds to the overall plethora of tourism and city materials that make use of the Blue Sky City logo and slogan.

“It all kind of comes together to what blue sky means. I know that for Calgary, it was picked because of the blue sky thinking and all the unexpected possibilities that come from Calgary when you visit or live here, as well as that diversity side of things, us being the third most diverse city in Canada.”

“Just getting that initial impression that this is a city for everybody, and we’re warm and welcoming to everybody that’s that’s coming into the city.”

The City of Calgary in a statement, said that the sign installation process is expected to be completed by mid-April.

They said that signs would be installed on four city roadways and six provincial roadways for a total of 10 signs across the city limits and near the Calgary International Airport.

Some criticism of change by Calgarians

Social media reaction to the new signs has been mixed, with commentary ranging from the design of the new signs to the replacement of the slogan.

Many users on Reddit pinned the former slogan “Heart of the New West,” which was used from 2000 to 2015.

Hessel said that the search for new city branding came out of the Covid-19 pandemic when it became clear that the story about the city and the leaders in the community had changed.

“We really started to find that there was a real need to change how we talked about ourselves around the world and within the city. It was that moment as we were doing that engagement and that research that we knew that we had to do something different, that there was a different story that Calgary wanted to tell,” he said.

“That’s when the work started to go to partners, to go to locals, and people from outside of the city to ask, ‘who is Calgary? What are we all about?’ that we really got a very strong impression of what people wanted to say and what people thought we were, and that’s where Blue Sky City came from.”

He said that a lot of people had gotten used to previous brands and slogans used, and acknowledged the criticism levelled at Blue Sky City by saying it wasn’t a brand that was thought up in an agency board room.

“It wasn’t just a design exercise, it was actually a full community engagement and research exercise. It came with a lot of backing, a lot of a lot of engagement research that that allowed us to get to to Blue Sky City,” Hessel said.

He said that as the brand is used to promote not only Tourism Calgary but also other city organizations like Calgary Economic Development, that having the unified branding would be an amazing resource and asset for telling the Calgary story.

“The slogan ‘be part of the energy’ was meant to be a really broad statement about all the things in Calgary. I think at times it did kind of point to certain industries. I do think that Blue Sky City is a really nice big, broad statement. Everything fits under this big blue sky in Calgary. That could be anything from our sports and our arts and our agriculture and oil and gas, and all these various different things,” Hessel said.

“It really does fit the community. It really tries to talk about what we’re like as a community, as opposed to pointing to something specific.”

Among the ways that the Blue Sky City logo and slogan have been used over the past year has been the All In campaign to showcase events and things to do in Calgary, Calgary Economic Development and Tourism Calgary Team Calgary using it at business development conferences globally, at major sporting events like Curing Canada’s International and at the Grey Cup announcement.

More locally it’s been used at the Stampede, Folk Fest, Pride, and Chinook Blast.

The brand will be used for a takeover of Dundas Station in Toronto in April, followed by blue carpet receptions for the hospitality industry’s White Hat Awards in May and for the Rotary International Convention in June.