Sport Hawkes Bay | Cultural Brand Identity

Te Ara o Ngā Tīpuna Design | Waiata & Karakia Book

Sport Hawke’s Bay approached PUREI to develop a cultural brand identity that aligned with their organisational values and represented the mahi they do across Te Matau-a-Māui.

The result was Te Ara o Ngā Tīpuna | The Path of the Ancestors, a pattern developed around their work in hauora, movement and connection, and the rohe and communities they serve. The name speaks to the pathways laid by our tūpuna across Ngāti Kahungunu, and the pathways we continue to create for ourselves and those who come after us.

The design brings together Pātiki | Niho Taniwha | Aramoana | Pūhoro | Maunga, each carrying its own kōrero within the wider pattern. Together they speak to whakapapa, whenua, movement, strength, collective wellbeing and the connections between our people and places, reflecting Sport Hawke’s Bay’s mahi across the rohe.

An important part of developing the identity was making sure the pattern had its own kōrero, specific to Sport Hawke’s Bay. While many of our patterns and motifs carry overarching meanings, those meanings are not fixed or universal. The whare the art comes from, the ringatoi and the kaupapa all shape the way those patterns are used and the kōrero they carry. Te Ara o Ngā Tīpuna was developed in this way, drawing from those foundations while creating a narrative specific to Sport Hawke’s Bay.

Alongside the cultural identity, PUREI redesigned their Pukapuka Waiata me ngā Karakia | Waiata & Karakia Booklet. Their existing collection of waiata and karakia was brought into a new publication design, with Te Ara o Ngā Tīpuna carried throughout the pukapuka. This gave the new identity a place within a resource already used by the organisation and created consistency across the two pieces of mahi.

The finished mahi gave Sport Hawke’s Bay a cultural brand identity with its own pattern, name and narrative, alongside a redesigned pukapuka that carries the identity into their everyday mahi.

Mahi | Cultural Brand Identity | Māori Pattern Design | Cultural Narrative | Publication Design