Design team chosen to create brand for Nordic region

A creative team including BIG Architects has been appointed to create a brand for all of the Nordic countries. The Nordic region comprises Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, as well as the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Åland.

The team was selected by a panel of foreign policy and tourism experts, after the Nordic Council of Ministers – the forum for Nordic governmental cooperation – put out a tender in September for the “branding and positioning of the Nordic Region”.

The ministers launched the tender with the aim of unifying the Nordic countries under a single brand, raising their political and economic impact and ultimately, “[putting] Nordic ideas and solutions on the world map”, says secretary general of the Nordic Council of Ministers, Dagfinn Høybråten.

BIG, Mensch, Area9 and Ole Lund Creative

The consortium comprises a range of design, creative and technical specialists, including architectural firm BIG, ad agency Mensch, technology company Area9 and design consultancy Ole Lund Creative.

The winning concept is called Traces of North, and is based on the idea of curating “Nordic narratives” and “traces” at different events, projects and places around the world, with the help of advanced publishing technologies.

Christina Tønnesen, CEO of Mensch, says: “Although the narrative of the democratic Nordic Region currently enjoys plenty of momentum, there will always be potential for making the brand even stronger.

“Living manifestation of the Nordic brand”

“Our ambition is to present a more multi-faceted image of the Region. We want to create a living manifestation of the Nordic brand, the Nordic mindset and Nordic ‘traces’ in the world.”

The tender comes after Strategy for International Branding of the Nordic Region 2015-2018 – a report published by the Nordic Council of Ministers in 2015 which set out their mission to “promote what we have in common – our Nordic perspective, our values, and a culture that has grown out of a common history”.