Brand the Beloved Country

The problem: the lack of a consistent visual thread running through all the many and various faces of South Africa's communications motifs, is causing a gap between the reality of our amazing achievements since democracy, and the actual image that we project.

Ikalafeng's task to identify core brand brand values gave rise to the idea of us being a place where you have freedom of opportunity - free to invest, to explore, or to be all you want to be - this was distilled into the evocative pay off line: 'Real Freedom'. The challenge -to express this in a workable visual architecture - was inspired by a blue crane which was stylised down to a few swarthy strokes, with the words 'South Africa' underneath. This was then carefully positioned on brightly coloured faceted backgrounds based on the similar bird in flight.

Gaby De Abreu produced two alternative solutions via his analysis of a brand promise, based on the surprise factor: 'Isn't it surprising that we are the second largest beer producers in the world? Isn't it surprising that Mandela forgave after 27 years in prison? Isn't it surprising that we never won the World Cup? etc, etc'. He developed a unique font based on the breaking up and stylising of letter forms, adding colour, which together with the words 'Isn't it Surprising?' could be used on photographic posters. His other solution in the pursuit of an iconic symbol for South Africa, was to just use 'sa', flattening the flag into a rainbow sausage which flowed into the letterform and which together could simultaneously be used as a running ribbon device across any media or outdoor requirements... The tagline for this solution which aimed to encapsulate the free flowing rainbow theme was 'Feel it'.

Lastly, Gary Harwood took us through their thinking... Identifying the need to leverage the equity of the words 'South Africa' themselves - but unable to find a suitable font, they stumbled upon the words handwritten by none other than Nelson Mandela, in a letter to his daughter. He has a beautiful handwriting and somehow the tangible legacy of his hand seems fitting for a project of this nature. Their concept of 'a view finder' through which you could frame your own view of things, coupled with the lettering, is relatively sound and - ironically - illustrates freedom of choice more so that either of the other two ideas. Like the above solutions, this can be rolled out across outdoor and other media into civic space, etc, as necessary. In addition, they proposed the use of a stripe motif in the distinctive colours of the flag to be used as a branding device.

It was at tall order, the most high pressure kind of pitch and all three were applauded by the audience for the tremendous amount of effort that must have gone into their presentations. In the end, one might question whether the solutions have been taken far enough - not from a design point of view - but from a conceptual one: a bird, a ribbon and a square... Perhaps there are other points of departure based on the concept of inclusivity, not about separates bands of colour, snazzy as they are, but about what bring things together, things that merge. Perhaps we should ask Credo Mutwa?

The exercise did prove that there is a real need for standardisation of our national visual communication system, the call for a united front of design, with which to go out and conquer the world.

Terry Levin is a creative commentator, designer and special correspondent for Bizcommunity.com.