Far more than a communications conduit between - customers, members, and employers - BCMEA provides: training, employment advocacy, negotiation, human resources, and developing waterfront culture. Brett Snowball was contracted to help provide visual direction, and undertake graphics & special projects to help support the communications department throughout 2023.
Our objective with BCMEA was to find a standardized look & feel to the visual communications. There wasn't a set direction that had been established, so the first order of business was creating a documented reference point. We spent time carving out the four primary attributes and emotions that BCMEA wanted to portrait. These were: inclusive, personable, reliable, and innovative. This process took about one week, and afterward we spent time conducting market research and competitive analysis on what visuals worked best for the industry. We noticed an illustrative style worked best for most social media communications, and this was our north star moving forward.
Everything created for BCMEA needed to be filtered through our "waterfront perspective" - this means each visual component needed to be connected to: place, face or space. The idea behind this is highlighting important workers and employers in our space. Showing a culturally diverse, deep workforce that supports BCMEA. We depict the locations and equipment used by our maritime workers, and how BCMEA provides training & safety.
Place is the geographical area
Face are the people
Space is the physical work environment
BCMEA operates from their Vancouver headquarters, but represents dozens of external business vendors throughout British Columbia. This meant we made a conscious effort in making graphics feel representational of different member terminals, different crews and commodities. To put things in perspective – The British Columbia Maritime Employer’s Association represents 53 employers who employ over 7000 waterfront workers, keeping BC’s ports operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It's a big job making sure everyone feels seen and heard!
We created dozens of branded touchpoints for BCMEA. From digital advertising, social media graphics, awareness campaign concepts, special projects, and even fleet graphics for their terminal vehicles!
The best part was working alongside the communications department, and watching things launch in real-time. It's been a rewarding project to be apart of, and hopefully we're able to continue this throughout 2024.
