Designing the community identity for the Municipality of the County of Antigonish
presented by we.us.them
Table of contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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STAGE 1: EXPLORING THE MUNICIPALITY
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STAGE 2: COMMUNITY VOICES
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STAGE 3: CREATIVE INQUIRY
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STAGE 4: BUILDING BLOCKS
15
STAGE 5: THE REVEAL
27
CLOSING RECOMMENDATION
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Executive Summary The team at WeUsThem Inc. would like to thank the Municipality of the County of Antigonish, the Warden, Councillors, Staff and of course the business owners and residents of the Municipality for affording us the opportunity to build what we believe will be the community identity for some time to come. Special thanks also to Ms. Tammy Feltmate for taking the time to meet with your (members of WeUsThem) team for this project. We take the development of an identity for the community very seriously as it is a balance of the vision of those that live within it and those that they would like to attract to it. We have within the process, solicited thoughts and ideas via social media (Facebook & Twitter) as well as engaged the assistance of Ms. Feltmate to disseminate a survey we developed, far and wide. In addition, our team has spent quite a bit of time in the Municipality and have taken in the sights from the extreme east to the west, exploring the unique cultural nuances, sights, icons, as well as the natural beauty all around. The final concepts we have put together are uniquely identifiable. The first two being a representation of the natural vistas and sustainable goals of the Municipality and the third representing a more casual, fun emotive experience. Concept 4 took on a revelation of the life of the Municipality while 5 was more of a juxtaposition of the present & the future. Our thanks once again for engaging us for this project as it is core to our value of engagement (We = Us + Them). Please do not hesitate to provide your feedback or thoughts per our coordinates and do reach out if we can be of Wservice again. Kind Regards,
Ashwin Kutty, BSc., MBA, IMM, EMM President & CEO, WeUsThem Inc. E: ashwin@weusthem.com T: 902.407.8150 W: weusthem.com
Faten Alshazly, BSc., MA Chief Creative Officer, WeUsThem Inc. E: faten@weusthem.com T: 902.407.8150 W: weusthem.com
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Exploring the Municipality
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Exploring the Municipality COLLATERAL Four members of our team, including our principals as well as our senior designer and digital strategist began their exploration with a meeting, the morning of June 05 with Ms. Tammy Feltmate. The meeting provided us with considerable insight in to the priorities of the Municipality, its successes with its Solid Waste Strategy, its focus on alternative energies, the economic climate and future, as well as an insight into the communities that make up the Municipality. In addition, we were also provided with the priorities as well as climate change action plan documents, along with information on your future trajectory. THE TOUR With two former St. FX alumni’s & residents of the Municipality that made up our brave team of explorers, we took to the road driving to the furthest edge of the Municipal boundaries locating potential sites for where the signs could be erected. Enroute we visited Pomquet, Antigonish, Airsaig, Beaver Mountain, Havre Boucher, and all the surrounding areas, along with the beaches, the various green belts, as well as the iconic spots across the Municipality. Our thanks to the residents & passerby’s as we stopped, took in the sights, enjoyed the brilliant cuisines and captured both memories as well as additional collateral for this project.
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Community Voices
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Community Voices THE METHODOLOGY One of the core principles of our work requires an engagement process that brings in as many stakeholders as we can to have a fair representation of the thoughts brought forth. We also believe in furthering the notion that the Community Identity Sign needs to be reflective of the communities that inhabit the Municipality. We also cast our nets far and wide, to capture the thoughts of those that traveled through & to the Municipality to get a reflection of what they believe was representative. To this end, we prepared an online survey, reviewed and approved by Ms. Feltmate at our meeting of June 5. The survey ran from June 06th to June 11th online at http://weusthem.com/antigonish as well as through social media, specifically Twitter & Facebook. For those that could not make in time to respond to the online survey, we also took in responses via e-mail.
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Community Voices THE SURVEY We asked 5 basic questions that would provide us with thoughts, sentiments, emotions and what the hopes of the future of the Municipality would be.
WeUsThem Inc. on behalf of the Municipality of the County of Antigonish has undertaken the design of two new signs on the east and west ends of Highway 104. Please share your thoughts in the survey below.
What area of the Municipality do you currently reside in?
What landmarks, events, attractions and/or regional milestones do you feel best represent the Municipality?
If you could have one unique characteristic of the Municipality portrayed to passerby’s, what would it be?
In your opinion, how do you envision the future of the Municipality?
Any additional thoughts?
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Community Voices 27 VOICES We received 27 responses in total during this short period and the highlights for each are noted below, with the key characteristics noted in the summary. SUMMARY RESPONSES FROM QUESTIONS TWO AND THREE: Beaches St. FX Landscape Highland Games Diversity
18 14 13 12 11
Cape George/Lighthouse Farming/fishing/forestry Farmers Market Keppoch Mtn. Riverside Speedway
10 8 3 3 2
Q1: WHAT AREA OF THE MUNICIPALITY DO YOU CURRENTLY RESIDE IN? Antigonish Town
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Pomquet
2
Q2: WHAT LANDMARKS, EVENTS, ATTRACTIONS AND/OR REGIONAL MILESTONES DO YOU FEEL BEST REPRESENT THE MUNICIPALITY? Beaches Highland games St.FX Cape George/Lighthouse Diversity
15 11 11 8 6
Farming/fishing/forestry Landscape Farmers Market Keppoch Mtn. Riverside Speedway
6 6 3 3 2
Q3: IF YOU COULD HAVE ONE UNIQUE CHARACTERISTIC OF THE MUNICIPALITY PORTRAYED TO PASSERBY’S, WHAT WOULD IT BE? Landscape Diversity Beaches St.FX Cape George/Lighthouse
7 5 3 3 2
Community Farming/fishing/forestry Highland Games St. Martha’s Hospital Coastline
2 2 1 1 1
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Q4: IN YOUR OPINION, HOW DO YOU FORESEE THE FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS OF THE MUNICIPALITY? Sustainability Commercial development Community development Diversity
6 5 4 1
St.FX Diversity St. Martha’s Hospital Main Street
1 1 1 1
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS: 1. If we learned anything from our highway before the construction it is that signs are unnecessary and ugly. Let’s let people enjoy our beautiful unobstructed views of the Nova Scotian landscape. 2. Promote more “Back to the Basics” tourism packages. Outdoor trips involving canoe/kayak trips and hiking the beautiful trails dotted about the county.....combine this with a few nights in one of the local motels/B&Bs and dinner at local restaurants and I think you’d have a winner!!.... maybe a trip to the Farmer’s Market or a visit to a farm or fishing area, so many options!! 3. Encourage more local dining, build on our local market, continue on working to form a mature and beautiful landscape within our town. All in all a cozy town is what draws people back to it. One where travellers feel welcomed, relaxed and get a sense of home and what Antigonish is all about :) 4. A survey like this should be mailed to all the homes in the county, perhaps with the county newsletter so more individuals have a chance to provide feedback. This is a great idea for future development initiatives as our people are our greatest resource.
5. Acadians, Scots, Dutch and First Nations - signage should represent these people 6. I feel that Antigonish has such a diverse culture of Aboriginal, Acadian, Scottish, etc. it would be disappointing not to engage that as being their most important asset. Embrace the diversity by sharing those pictures. 7. We need to overcome the ridiculous divide that has been perpetuated in the community between town and county to move ahead. 8. Tourists and those who travel through our area often miss the beauty of our landscape - we have many artists here who make a living from painting this beauty. A gentle landscape, a gentle lifestyle and a gentle community. 9. Try to capture the culture of the whole area, not just fishing community or farming. Antigonish is also a very artsy community so try to involve that as well! 10. If I were driving into Antigonish I believe the signage should link to the ocean. You can smell it as you drive in (in summer). Link it to nature and the people who thrive in it.
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Community Voices TAKEAWAYS It is clear, that the natural vistas, including the landscape, the ocean and the lives around them are what attracts those that reside in the Municipality and clearly those that visit it. We could not agree more. We believe the natural beauty of the Municipality is breathtaking and for it to be provided as a taste of what the possibilities are creates a natural curiosity to ensure passerby’s stop and take in what they could potentially miss out. Iconic elements of the Municipality that further exemplifies the vistas are key to both the historical past as well as the foundations for a future charted by the residents.
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Creative Inquiry
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Creative Inquiry ALBUM OF MEMORIES Our creative inquiry resulted in the development of an album of memories. The pictorial we managed to create could very well manifest itself as a collage of our exploration of the Municipality.
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Creative Inquiry
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Creative Inquiry SHARED MEMENTOES Ms. Feltmate was kind enough to share some shared snapshots, collected over a period of time of various unique instances that further added to our collection of memories.
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Creative Inquiry COMPETING SIGNAGE Enroute into the Municipality and while touring it, we came across a lot of signage on the Highway, including those that identified a community to those that were traditional Highway signs indicative of wayfinding/road markers to information for travellers and passer by’s. In noting what was currently available to what we were creatively building, we captured a few shots of competing signage within the vicinity from the east as well as the west.
TYPOGRAPHY During our meeting with Ms. Feltmate she did note that we should consider reviewing the wayfinding document developed for the Town of Antigonish for possible font choices that could be explored for the Municipality. The document is available online at: http://www.townofantigonish.ca/antigonish-wayfindingstrategy.html
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Building Blocks
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Building Blocks Our building blocks were put together with the thought of three concepts that we believed could bring together the voices of the community, along with the collateral and inspirational items we had collected in our travels. VISUAL IMPRESSIONS “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” - Ansel Adams The visual impressions we selected from our creative inquiry led us to the final concepts we put together for what we believe will be timeless points of curiosity for those that take it in. Each concept carries the visual hierarchy required to represent the Municipality along with the voices of its residents. DREAMING IN COLOUR “Colours are the smiles of nature.” - James Henry Leigh Hunt We are artists, but do recognize that the colours laid out in nature cannot be outdone or improved upon. As we were representing the natural landscapes, we believed in picking colour profiles that were complimentary and fit within the final executions naturally. TYPOGRAPHY “Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form.” - Robert Bringhurst Highway signs tend to be easily passed by without much attention to the words that may perhaps be written on them. We limited the use of typographic executions to the name of the Municipality and a tag line for one of our concepts that we believed suited the final execution as well as what we had already heard from the community and visually catalogued during our exploration. STYLISTIC EXPRESSIONS “People will stare. Make it worth their while.” - Harry Winston We believe in masterpieces and cannot help but take our inspiration from the greats. When capturing the beauty all around us and comparing the stylistic expressions displayed thus far in competing signs, we believed in ensuring there to be a difference in what we would deliver for the Municipality.
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Building Blocks CONCEPT 1 - NATURAL GLORY Showcasing the Municipality becomes a whole lot easier when the vistas are so vibrant and beautiful. This concept brings to bear not just the beauty of the natural landscape, but also presents some unique tourist hotspots such as the Cape George Lighthouse as well as Crystal Cliffs, along with the scenic beauty of how we experienced our exploration of the Municipality. In addition, the future and current success of the Municipality in sustainability are well balanced and displayed showing the coming together of the natural elements. The juxtaposition of the harshness of the road presents the path that we all take, creating a sense of familiarity tying the sign into a relative position of the viewer. The impressionist movement led by the greats such as Monet, Seurat & Van Gogh provided the inspiration needed for this artistic execution.
Landscape with Green Corn, Green Wheat Field with Cypress By Vincent Van Gogh
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte By Georges-Pierre Seurat
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Building Blocks COLOUR PALETTE
TYPOGRAPHIC CHOICES
Sketching a composition
Syntax
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Nexa Bold
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
The finer points
Breathing in colour
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Building Blocks CONCEPT 2 - SEASONAL ELEVATION Concept 2 went further than Concept 1 to highlight the seasonality we so often face in Atlantic Canada. As the sign is timeless, it captures the natural beauty of the various seasons in the Municipality by manipulating the colours of the same objects, while allowing three totally different seasons to stand out from each other. With smooth transitions between the three sections, all seasons naturally co-exist on the same canvas while presenting the viewer with a unique sense of the beauty the Municipality presents no matter when you were to stop by.
Haystacks in different times and seasons - By Claude Monet
COLOUR PALETTE
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Building Blocks TYPOGRAPHIC CHOICES Syntax
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Caflisch Script Pro
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Kaushan Script
Building on perfection
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Splitting the canvas
Nature’s touch
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Building Blocks CONCEPT 3 - YOUTHFUL FUN This is a showcase of both the natural and cultural attraction of the Municipality of the County of Antigonish. The artwork features St. Francis Xavier University, Highland Games, Crystal Cliffs and one of the many beautiful beaches throughout the Municipality. The idea behind the design is to deliver a pleasant and joyful image of the Municipality to those passing by, enticing them to stop in and experience it at first hand. The artwork offers a more contemporary and vibrant feel, bringing the natural and cultural attractions in the Municipality to life. Inspired from the likes of Warhol & Lichtenstein, this concept brings to bear Pop Art in all its glory with black outlines, over-saturated colours, & overall a flat colour filling. The sticker-like title offers an unconventional feel to the artwork, presenting the text in a way that speaks louder than words.
Drowning Girl By Roy Lichtenstein
Banana By Andy Warhol
Campbell’s Soup Cans By Andy Warhol
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Building Blocks COLOUR PALETTE
TYPOGRAPHIC CHOICES
Sketching a composition
Syntax
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Nexa Bold
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Building a outline
Adding fun
22
Building Blocks CONCEPT 4 - TRACTOR ON Concept 4 took on the life of what the Municipality lives and breathes each day, while also presenting opportunities for the future while also enticing potential tourists to explore the scenic beauty and the recreation points available to them. A notion of the livelihoods of those in the Municipality gets visualized quite admirably with a juxtaposed view to the future of sustainability and a new economy mentality marrying itself with the traditional economic growth. The inclusive nature removes the traditional barriers while bringing to bear the various points of curiosity we would want travellers to experience.
Landscape with Green Corn, Green Wheat Field with Cypress By Vincent Van Gogh
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte By Georges-Pierre Seurat
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Building Blocks COLOUR PALETTE
TYPOGRAPHIC CHOICES
Sketching a composition
Syntax
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Nexa Bold
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
The finer points
Live and direct
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Building Blocks CONCEPT 5 - RIDE ON In looking at the future of sustainability, buying local, the farm to table movement, to organic growth ride on places the road in the middle of natural vistas that can be enjoyed by those even riding through the Municipality. A marriage between recreation, economy, tourism, and sustainability presents a concept that balances the openness and unrestricted access & views around the Municipality creating a sense of an open invitation to those that want to experience it in their own way. Recreation, coupled with the health conscious and sustainable minds brings to bear a new age view of the Municipality to the discerning traveler.
Haystacks in different times and seasons - By Claude Monet
25
Building Blocks COLOUR PALETTE
TYPOGRAPHIC CHOICES
Sketching a composition
Syntax
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Nexa Bold
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
The finer points
The future state
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The Reveal
The Reveal CONCEPT 1 - NATURAL GLORY
MUNICIPALITY OF THE COUNTY OF
ANTIGONISH 28
The Reveal CONCEPT 2 - SEASONAL ELEVATION
MUNICIPALITY OF THE COUNTY OF
ANTIGONISH 29
The Reveal CONCEPT 3 - YOUTHFUL FUN
30
The Reveal CONCEPT 4 - TRACTOR ON
MUNICIPALITY OF THE COUNTY OF
ANTIGONISH 31
The Reveal CONCEPT 5 - RIDE ON
MUNICIPALITY OF THE COUNTY OF
ANTIGONISH 32
The Reveal FROM CONCEPT TO REALITY
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The Reveal FROM CONCEPT TO REALITY
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Closing Recommendation As can be evidenced from our work, we have opted to go for vibrancy over flat photography. This technique elevates the signage and brings eyeballs to the signs as opposed to being blended into the competitive landscape of signs currently on the highway. That said, although we believe any of these signs would be well placed for the Municipality we would suggest Concept 2, Seasonal Elevation be the choice for the signs. It brings to bear all that Concept 1 has to offer, i.e. natural vistas, landscapes, sustainability while adding a dimension of seasonality. This coupled with the artistic execution of an impressionist style would provide for an eye-catching sign that would be hard to miss. The future trajectory of the Municipality would also be well served by the sign while respecting the voices of the community that we were presented with. Considering the demographic of the Municipality the sign represents, as well as those that drive by on the Highway, we would suggest that the concept present a unique and memorable point of curiosity that we believe will drive traffic in to the various parts of the Municipality. They also present, not just a snapshot in time, but also a timeless representation of a forward thinking Municipality.
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