You can't design a place that you need to Google
When you're designing a city's identity, how important is local knowledge? Very, believes Liam Edwards, Art Director at AgencyUK Bath. Which is why he thinks local agencies should get a chance to tell the story of their towns and cities.
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You only really get to know a city by living in it. It's the shortcut you take to work every day, the pub that keeps changing hands, the building that's sat empty for as long as anyone can remember.
The Romans had a word for what holds all of that together: genius loci, the spirit of a place. It builds up through shared experience, including the arguments a city keeps having with itself. Bath has some that are older than most of its residents.
So, this isn't about the quality of the work. The question is, who gets the chance to compete to give it?
Living somewhere gives you a feel for all of this, often without trying. Most of our team walk through Bath to get to work. I studied here, and I live here now. You pick up the sounds, smells and quirks of local life that only register when you're here every day. That's useful when you're helping a place tell its story. It shapes the questions you ask, and it usually means you already know someone with a story worth hearing.
Above: The beautiful south-west city of Bath.
Designers take on a real responsibility when they turn a city's identity into words, images and signs. In Bath, that responsibility recently went to London studio Fieldwork Facility (a studio we admire, so no sour grapes here), appointed by Bath & North East Somerset Council to create the branding, signage and interpretation for the Bath River Line.
We didn't pitch for this one. Honestly, we didn't know it was happening until the signs started going up along the river, which is a strange feeling on a walk you do most days. I don't know what the brief was worth or how the appointment was made, and I'm not suggesting anything wrong was done, but I'd love to know whether local agencies ever had a chance to compete, and whether knowing Bath counted for anything, especially when the council has a Think Local approach to procurement.
Recognising good work
Agencies from elsewhere produce excellent work, and the Bath River Line is a good example. Some of it has already made it onto our studio wall, which is the highest compliment one design team can pay another without saying it out loud. Fieldwork Facility know interpretation and wayfinding inside out, as their work for the V&A East Storehouse shows. This was also a complex brief: a World Heritage Site with a protected public realm, in a city where moving a bollard can prompt a strongly worded letter. Given their experience, I can see why the council went to them.
I'm not suggesting anything wrong was done, but I'd love to know whether local agencies ever had a chance to compete, and whether knowing Bath counted for anything.
And the River Line work is beautiful. Annoyingly so. I like the simplicity of the design system, the illustrations and the use of Bath's historic flood markings. Boards along the route tell 21 stories about the riverside's history, culture and nature, developed with organisations including the Environment Agency, Bath Industrial Heritage Trust and local archives. Fieldwork Facility also commissioned local collage artist Marian Hill to illustrate the river's wildlife, from otters and bats to falcons and fish.
So, this isn't about the quality of the work. If anything, the work proves that places deserve this level of care. The question is, who gets the chance to compete to give it?
Above: Fieldwork Facility's work for the Bath River Line
Giving local knowledge a part in the decision
Good agencies can build a real understanding of a city through research and conversation. Local teams just get a head start, mostly by accident, from years of walking the same streets and complaining about the same roadworks. Commissioners should recognise the value of that when deciding who is best placed to tell a city's story.
Bath and Bristol have creative agencies more than capable of handling large-scale projects. They aren't hard to find, either. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimates that around seven in ten creative industries jobs were outside London in 2025.
When choosing a team, [commissioners] should weigh how well it knows the place alongside its experience, the quality of its design work and its ability to deliver.
Engaging local agencies early would help commissioners see who could take on the work. When choosing a team, they should weigh how well it knows the place alongside its experience, the quality of its design work and its ability to deliver. We're not asking for a free pass. We'd just like a fair chance to compete, and to lose fairly if someone does it better.
Above: There's a catch-22 when it comes to local agencies getting public sector work.
What Bath loses
There's a catch built into the process. Public tenders usually ask for previous public-sector work, which is fair enough, until you notice the loop. If local agencies never get civic projects, they never build the credentials, so they never qualify for the next one. The work keeps going to the same studios, not because anyone decided it should, but because that's how the process quietly works.
Then there's the money. Research by the British Chambers of Commerce and [market intelligence platform] Tussell found that English councils spent £29.1 billion directly with SMEs in 2025, 34% of their procurement spending. The more of that goes to firms in the area, the more of it stays there. Local work helps agencies stay in business, build experience and invest in the city they call home. It also means the people who made the signs have to walk past them every day, which is excellent quality control.
Bath has spent a long time getting its story right. The people who know where the shortcuts are, which pub has changed hands again and why that building is still empty should get a fair chance to help tell it.
And there's the next generation. Bath Spa University, one of the River Line's own partners, trains designers every year. Plenty of them leave for London (I was one of them in 2018, before Bath lured me back in 2022), and it's hard to blame them if the city's most visible design work goes there anyway.
Bath has spent a long time getting its story right. The people who know where the shortcuts are, which pub has changed hands again and why that building is still empty should get a fair chance to help tell it.
Because if Bath's own designers never get the chance to tell Bath's story, how long before there's no one left here who can?
