We partnered with Port of Tauranga, Aotearoa’s biggest and busiest port to carry out their first full rebrand in over 20 years.
Background
Through decades of thoughtful investment in capability, acquisitions, and partnerships, ‘the Port’ was revered for its strong financial performance and consistent growth. But after recent leadership changes, the business was embracing a more multifaceted strategic direction, a focus on its people and local environment, as well as its financial prosperity.
Fuel was engaged by the Port after a successful pitch process to help them evolve the brand in line with this broader mission, signalling to its staff, partners, and the community their commitment to this ambitious new direction.
Strategy
The Port had recently defined their purpose, values and vision - they knew who they were and what they offered. To deliver a brand strategy capable of informing future creative, we needed to understand the Port’s audiences, define their unique brand personality, and write a narrative that would help make their purpose statement (Connecting New Zealand and the World) uniquely their own.
Through a robust discovery phase we uncovered the importance of protecting and empowering the Port’s people and being thoughtful guardians of their local environment. The evolved identity needed to show this. It was also important to retain the existing equity in the brand, honouring the company’s past and bringing current staff and customers along with them as they grew. The new brand had to clearly signal change and intent, without throwing away all that was working.
Creative
The brand’s geometric imagery pairs with the new brand colours to distinctively and recognisably express Tauranga’s unique geography. The semi-circles evoke the silhouette of Mauao, the curve of the harbour, the crescent of the rising sun, and the land as it meets the sea.
The graphic language echoes the brand narrative, celebrating the Port’s place at the heart of concentric circles - the local community, the region and Aotearoa. These circles express movement, the rippling effect of a ship’s bow as it glides through the water and the Port as a focal point, the place where we take New Zealand to the world and welcome the world to New Zealand. The curves also symbolise connection and a point-to-point journey, ending in a safe anchorage.
The colour palette of green and blue is strong, modern and progressive, while retaining the existing equity of this powerful brand. Inspired by the natural environment, the green reflects the local whenua (land), and the blue reflects the moana (ocean).
The primary brand font is Museo Sans. It's an easy to read, sans serif font chosen to represent the brand’s approachable and friendly nature. The icon style includes abstract and literal options to support the broadranging communications and UI requirements - built from the same circles seen in the logo to bring cohesion to all touchpoints.
Brand rollout
We implemented the new brand across digital, physical, and print touchpoints - ensuring the system worked beautifully everywhere it needed to, and that at launch it was highly visible and tangible to its staff. Team gifts, an employee brand book, signage and wayfinding, vehicles, stationery, and social content will all help the organisation to embrace its bold new direction.
The new brand system is easily adaptable across all collateral, utilising the simple blue and white hues of the brand for easy, clear communication.
Brand launch
The brand was launched at an understated organisation wide event that perfectly reflected the brand personality of down-to-earth and warm, introduced through a keynote from CEO paired with savouries and new branded merch up for grabs.
