The Brief
A place brand for the Eyre Peninsula
For 15 years South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula was known as ‘The Seafood Frontier’ thanks to an inherited campaign line developed to hero the seafood industry.
And while the seafood industry and the coastline as a whole remains a major part of what made the Eyre Peninsula so popular for residents and tourists, the peninsula is also home to 11 diverse council areas – many of which have no connection to the coast.
In 2022, the Regional Development Australia Eyre Peninsula engaged Fuller to develop a place brand and accompanying brand identity which could unite it’s 11 councils and evoke pride across the 170,000 square-kilometre peninsula.
We knew in order to get it right, we needed to go deep. Deep into strategy; deep into regional consultation, and deep into the history of this wonderful place.
Over 12 hours and more than 1200km of road-tripping later, discovered a singular story that would sum-up the richly diverse, ever changing regions that made up the cultural fabric of Eyre.
Strategy
Working with recently completed research from The Tourism Collective the Fuller team set out to immerse ourselves in the region and get to know its people.
Across two road trips to Eyre, the team completed four in-region workshops, strategically held in a key inland regional town and a major coastal city to ensure everyone had the opportunity to attend. A mix of business owners, residents (new and old), tourism operators and representatives from the seafood industry were invited to contribute their unique stories to support Fuller in building a new brand for their beloved region.
Ultimately, through these workshops, and from visiting as many front bars, petrol stations, visitor information centres and bakeries as possible, the Fuller team were on a mission to define the purpose and identity of the region: two critical elements of any place brand.
Purpose
The region’s purpose was to “responsibly share our ancient and unique landscapes, wildlife and history with people who will connect with our region on a deeper level”.
This let to the brand platform, ‘Eyre. The Wild Side’ - crafted to provide locals with an ownable and authentic identity, which not only resonated with their own experiences of the region but also helped entice the ‘right’ kind of tourists.
Brand Story
An inspiring new brand story played on the region’s perceived weaknesses and turned them into key assets. Assets that not only made Eyre unique, but would create a desire among tourists to ‘discover their Wild Side’.
Visual Identity
The Eyre’s diverse districts necessitated a flexible brand identity capable of encompassing the unique personalities of each regional town, along with a logo that defied trends and literal symbols, offering a timeless design.
The new identity was an expression of Eyre’s raw, rugged and refreshingly beautiful land. A bespoke font, inspired by local signage and nuances from around the region, was created to give Eyre a distinct look and feel. It was complemented by unique signage templates for each of the districts and an immersive brand film that told the story of Eyre’s ‘wild side.’
The custom fonts “Gaffa Wild” and “Gaffa Mild” draw inspiration from the rugged Eyre Peninsula signage. While “Gaffa Wild” exudes an untamed aesthetic with overlapping, tape-like letters, resulting in a strikingly distressed appearance, “Gaffa Mild” draws from hand-painted road signs, employing straight lines for practicality in documents, signage and collateral.
Ligatures empower the creation of personalised letter combinations for place names, districts and headlines, facilitating the versatile application of the custom font by in-house designers across a multitude of contexts. Moreover, they nurture the potential for engagement from local communities and businesses, further embracing this distinctive identity.
Outcome
Through deep consultation, long drives and many, many wonderful conversations with locals - who were kind enough to trust us to tell the story of the place they loved and protected - we crafted a brand the community could be proud of.
In 2023 ‘Eyre. The Wild Side’ won an AADC Award for Static Typography. It was also awarded the 2023 Tourism Industry Council South Australia (TICSA) award for Tourism Marketing and Campaigns.
Fuller would like to thank the region of Eyre and the team at Regional Development Australia Eyre Peninsula.
In their words