North County Transit District: Branding
CLIENT
North County Transit District
SERVICES
Branding
The opportunity
The North County Transit District (NCTD) is embarking on a process to revitalize and reimagine 11 of its transit stations throughout North County through transit-oriented development (TOD), which builds housing, businesses, and other community amenities near transit hubs. To do this, NCTD is partnering with private developers, North County cities and the community to create the vision and develop conceptual plans for each individual site, which are all at various stages of development in the planning and design process. The different projects all require varying degrees of communications and outreach but work towards the same regional goals.
The approach
JPW crafted a thoughtful, overarching brand for the TOD effort including five sub-brands, a new template for presentations, maps for each project and various infographics and graphic elements for the website and beyond. Additionally, JPW developed an overarching, programmatic community outreach and engagement framework for NCTD and its partner developers to use as a tool to guide all individual TOD project partners through a consistent process for developing and implementing an outreach strategy for each TOD project. The plan aimed to:
Raise awareness and garner support for NCTD’s vision for TOD projects and the holistic project benefits beyond transit operations.
Create a more comprehensive and integrated approach for internal NCTD staff and project partners to guide external community outreach and engagement for TOD projects.
The reward
The tagline for the campaign, “Enhancing communities, expanding connections,” illustrates NCTD’s desire for a shift in community perception away from just a transit agency and toward a neighbor and partner that works towards the greater good of North County. The campaign emphasizes implied motion through the language, typography style, graphics and associated imagery, resulting in a united concept that fits seamlessly within the overarching NCTD brand. This concept serves as the umbrella for the 11 projects within the campaign that span five cities, each with their own logo and sub-brand using varying combinations of NCTD colors and concept design. This helps create a sense of ownership and delineation between the neighboring city projects, while still showcasing NCTD as the acting agency.