Moxie worked with the team at Hutt City Council to review and refresh the Council’s visual identity and create a consistent brand architecture for its sub-brands, products, services and events.
The requirements were to achieve higher brand recognition through streamlining and modernising the visual identity and applying it consistently with clear rules about each brand category. In addition to designing the new identity, our approach was to create supporting tools that enable good-decision making in brand management.
Our process was designed to capture the core brand perception that would underpin all messaging and communications and identify the creative direction for the look and feel. We also developed a brand map and definitions for the various categories, which were then aligned with the Council’s Long Term Plan Strategic Objectives, creating rules for each desired look and feel for sub-categories.
The selected concept —Tūrangawaewae — was inspired by the natural landforms, hills, rivers, and coastline surrounding Lower Hutt. Tūrangawaewae represents domicile, a place where one has the right to stand or the rights of residence and belonging through kinship and whakapapa.
We used the lines from topographic maps of significant landmarks in the region as a simple graphic device to reference the shape of the mountains and coastline and suggest the tides’ movement or the river’s flow. The lines are a metaphor for the different cultures, communities and individuals living and working together in Lower Hutt.
