The branding of Anzihe nature reserve in Sichuan province, China. Anzihe nature reserve is very important in terms of biodiversity conservation, unfortunately the Chinese people know very little about. Many challenges from research and conservation funding to sustainable development and more, lay in the future of this amazing remote area. Conservation International (CI) has been leading a master planning and re-branding program in order to make Anzihe more known to the Chinese people and to transform it in to one of the best national parks in China. This is where we were called to help.

In Sichuan province, there are several huge nature reserves with similar landscape and species, thus the big challenge of our branding project was to create a uniqueness for Anzihe. Due to the single child policy and to rapid urbanization - Chinese people have been parted from nature, and nature education has developed a significant luring potential for middle class families (the targeted audience of Anzihe). In the branding of Anzihe, we have decided to focus on the Eco-tourism and nature education programs developed by CI (both topics highly undeveloped in china) and to brand Anzihe not just as a nature reserve, but as an educational nature reserve. Kids will come here to learn, to feel and to experience the wisdom of nature - the wonderful and mysterious ecosystem, relationships between animals, plants, the variety of species, topography and more. Since the main audience are children - the brand essence was designed as accessible, playful and fun - a brand that has its own illustrated language, portraying nature life in Anzihe in an educational yet fun manner.

We interviewed and visited Anzihe a few times and learned from CI’s nature education experts and Anzihe staff many nature stories and facts. From these, we have picked dozens of stories to reflect the vision of the brand. The unique content and visual system that has been designed for anzihe has resulted in a highly unique signage system, portraying these hand-picked stories and educational facts in a fun and educational approach. Both Conservation International and the Anzihe staff are extremely happy and proud of the result. They say the design is one of kind in China, that it has unique blend of knowledge and fun - that will be appealing to both parents and children and will be a landmark in branding in the whole Sichuan province.