Case Studies
Bala Cranberry Festival
The Bala Cranberry Festival is a 3-day celebration of Muskoka’s beloved cranberry, and is one of Canada’s largest harvest festivals.The festival brings visitors from all over Ontario and offers a wide range of activities from plunging in cranberry marshes to wine tastings. However, the current branding does not reflect the energy and excitement of the festival, and lacks visual consistency. The goal of the proposed brand design is to highlight the unique qualities of the festival, attract urban visitors and extend the tourist season in Bala.
Based on research, the majority of Bala’s visitors drive to the festival from larger cities to the south. Therefore, the conceptual and illustration-based approach of the rebrand highlights and emphasizes the journey to Bala through the depiction of an abstracted map. The illustrations comment on Ontario’s fall scenery, the nature-oriented activities of cottage country and the main attraction of the festival: cranberries. This conceptual approach aims to intrigue urban visitors to travel the long journey from the GTA, and ultimately bring more tourism to the town of Bala.
Ottawa Public Library
The Ottawa Public Library is North America’s largest bilingual library system, serving close to one million Ottawa residents. The OPL houses a large variety of services including literacy programs and technology-based spaces with the mission to inspire learning, spark curiosity, and connect people. However, with a decrease in youth populations visiting libraries, the current brand of 20 years fails to reflect the future-orientated values of the library system. Therefore, the proposed rebrand, aims to encapsulate the progressive goals of OPL and bring attention to the library as a contemporary space for future generations to grow and learn.
OLP serves and educates the residents of Ottawa, therefore the brand's fluid elements and logo consist of abstracted shapes inspired by key Ottawa landmarks. In addition to the logo, the fluid elements can be applied throughout the brand, and ultimately pay homage to the unique city that unites all OPL visitors. The logo's angular composition effectively accommodates both English and French and is also reflected in the visual application of the fluid elements. The bold and minimal shapes aim to create a more contemporary and modern visual style to attract a younger target audience.
