LevelBuilding a global brand that’s grounded

Challenge

Carbon Tanzania was an early mover in developing verified carbon offsets to protect forests that might otherwise have been lost to agriculture and development. Its mission was to empower communities and local governments to realise value from managing the natural resources around them.

After achieving great success within Tanzania, the founders saw an opportunity to share their expertise and expand the role and impact of nature-based conservation elsewhere.

Our brief was to design and deliver a name and a brand that would carry the same pioneering spirit and community commitment into new markets and geographies.

Insight

Stakeholder interviews across the business and its partners underlined the depth of the team's commitment to local communities. That experience and commitment, backed by an unwavering belief in a global economy that truly values nature, became the driving force behind the new brand.

We realised the concept needed to build on the idea of equity, both in the Western capitalist sense and its other essence of fairness and balance.

The new business would be known simply as Level, a name that invokes the balance between people and nature, between investors and protectors, and between the drive to increase investment and decrease human impact on the environment.

Solution

We developed a colour palette inspired by levels found in nature, from the stratosphere through cities, to plants, animals and people, soil, roots and water. The colours reference both the warm, earthy tones of the natural world and the cooler, corporate world Level is looking to balance.

We paired this with authentic, citizen-led and nature-inspired photography and messaging that celebrates the work being done now and the work still to come, so the visual identity itself embodies a sense of balance and bringing things onto the same level.

The result is a future-proof brand true to its leadership's vision and reflective of the opportunities that innovative, nature-based conservation unlocks.