NEP
Services
Brand Strategy
Brand Identity
Logo Design
Brand Guidelines
Background
NEP – Niseko Eco Project is a community initiative aligned with my personal value of 'positive growth' and a great way to give back to the region I call home.
Founded by local residents, NEP is a not-for-profit NGO that exists to ensure that the social and environmental aspects of development and expansion in Niseko are front of mind in decision-making processes.
The Niseko region including the towns of Hirafu, Kutchan, and Niseko has experienced year on year growth that has been unique within Japan. A quiet domestic ski area up until the 1990's, the region has exploded in popularity with international travelers drawn to the amazing snow conditions and the peaceful green season. Developers, hospitality and consumer brands are now looking to capitalise on the predicted 300 million new skiers in China by 2022, notwithstanding global pandemics. Niseko is abound with wilderness, rejuvenating onsens, world class seafood, produce and restaurants– the area's inherent social and ecological values need to be recognised and protected.
NEP is looking to work with local citizens, town councils, promotions boards, forward thinking businesses and primary resource users to create a strategic vision and sustainable growth opportunities for the region.
Approach
My first step after being engaged to create the visual identity system was to get the founders to understand the value of brand strategy. To build a brand you need to understand the organization- its mission, vision, values, stakeholders; strengths and weaknesses. This is especially challenging when you are building an organisation from the ground up, still in the early stages of member recruitment, have minimal resources (no one is getting paid) and a huge scope for core areas of focus. A fun challenge!
I set out to understand their vision and how their recruitment of community members and a leadership team was progressing. To that point- there was minimal promotion and outreach beyond a facebook group and word of mouth. We decided a community logo competition would be an inclusive way to promote NEP's existence and get ideas around identity from the broader community.
The founders undertook the logo competition and it was a success recruiting new members and gaining the attention of local schools. Some local businesses also showed great support, offering prizes.
Following the competition, I held a brand discovery session to get into the strategy work. Looking first at the naming, the Why, Who, What and Hows of branding and brand archetypes. We began to understand the type of environmental organisation we want to grow into.
Key challenges for the brand are in appealing to a broad audience in terms of cultures and personal values. Establishing a brand that conveys professionalism and inclusivity. Language was another key concern and following the strategy sessions we changed the name from Niseko "environmental" project to "eco" because eco is used in both English and Japanese, is shorter and easy to pronounce.
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