MONCHEGORSK, MURMANSK OBLAST, Russia
Communication with residents of Monchegorsk
How we talked, co-created and shared ideas with local residents
Establishing communication with common town residents is essential in branding that is often taken for granted. Without proper efforts, newly created brand wouldn't be loved by the town residents and stop growing somewhere on the design level, based on the amount of finances spent on its prevalence. Or, what's more expected, even can face rejection. That is a more than common situation, where brand is commisioned by the authorities and not grown up from common people. In case of Monchegorsk, it was also requested from the top, yet perceived pretty much gently without agression. That was the results of the careful work of communication.

Client: Monchegorsk Development Agency

Work:
Art direction, communicating, copywriting, ideas

2022 … 2023
Agency of town development
There has to be the initiator and the heart of all the branding changes open for public, that residents can visit by any purpose they wish. Be it asking questions, participating in the event or asking questions not anonymously. It's better be not an official authority building, which can hinder access and add burocracy.
Ideally, it have to be:
  1. Public space (coworking, cafe, any 3rd place)
  2. Agency (our case)
Town development agency offers educational, town talks, master classes with experts, financial help (including funding), accumulation and curating all sorts urban changes in town.

Monchegorsk Development Agency opens its doors for everybody interested
The boiling energy of events, taking part at the Monchegorsk Agency
Brand manager
Getting familiar with town residents can be an option when branding is not limited by outsource design only, like a lot of studies do. Not pointing with a finger.
  1. Live in place (like Vasily Dubeykovsky during branding Uryupinsk in "the capital of Russia province")
  2. Supporting the "freshly-baked" brand (our case)
  3. Have a brand manager in place (also our case)
All the communication info shouldn't be chaotic, and better be well documented. Especially for this needs, we have created a handy brandmanaging wiki.

Kirill Fokin, the brand manager of Monchegorsk (since 2023). Born and living in Monchegorsk
Handy wiki for keeping all the brand managing info for the brand manager
Design contests
Involving residents to co-creating things is essential for getting allies between residents with further lifting up the results to the specified level of graphic design.
Despite the fact that we got dozen elks of all kinds and shapes mixed with industrial backgrounds. Afterwards, the final work, which had been voted by the residents, had been slightly moved towards brand guidelines, without getting authorship away from the designer who won in the contest. Plus one allied designer is always a win in a long run.
Igor Makovsky
BRAND STRATEGIST, ART DIRECTOR, DESIGNER
Logo of the holiday: original, voted by the residents (left), slightly redraws to match the brand by Katya Antoshkina (right)
Creative questions
Set of questions, that we've put on cubes that showed off at public events by the brand kiosk. The rules were plain as follow:
  1. Take a selfie photo or video (or the agency team can help) by the question cube.
  2. Answer it.
  3. Upload video or a photo, followed by the answer.
  4. Mark it with the appropriate tag.
  5. Take a part in some contest for the most creative answer or just a random one.
These are the questions, focusing on the brand:
Set of questions we have offered for the contest
These are the residents, answering the questions. We have gifted them some brand t-shirts for participating in this lake quiz.
Local residents get familiar with the brand during the town day festival and tell their stories on camera
Filmfest
Taking short (like 1-2 minutes short) videos on local people sharing their personal emotions of the brand. This project was needed a caring author and we were lucky to find such talent among the native residents, Nikita Filatov. Later on, we've put it all in a local film festival, showed all the films to the public, including town authorities. Besides a good occasion for a town meeting, we've prooved that the brand idea worth living.

Nikita Filatova, the filmmaker
Born in Monchegorsk
Town residents enjoy watching short movies about the brand
Mobile film studio
Since we absolutely loved the filmfest and got a lot of respeonse from residents, we asked all of them to come visit our film kiosk to be shooted on a professtion camera and sound. This perfomance was greately appreciated by the local actors big or small.
Self-improvised cabin made of leftovers from the expo stand, where residents can recording their personal story about town and lakes like a pro
Local vocabulary
Collecting content for the dictionary of local terms, that would be totally unknown for foreigners with the following publishing a book of monchegorian words. Residents have got a set of letters and had been offered to write the most unique words and describe them.
Speak like a true monchegorian
Festival of the local food receipts
This was the activity, based on collecting receipts of local northern dishes with the onforward awards for the most creative (and tasty) ones, that would become a part of the restaurant menu.
A brand shed where residents can share the local food receipts they like
Highly illustrative identity for the food festival (designed by Igor Makovsky, illustrations by Katya Semenova)
Illustrations made by Katya Semenova
Creating a map together
Getting content from the residents for the tourist map. As seen on the photo below, the most loved places are located by the lake shores.
One sticker stands for one story about the Monchegorsk
Communicating with residents on the town day
Release of the brand magazine
Lake storytelling goes to both print and internet formats in the personal project of the town brand manager, Kirill Fokin and his team in 2024. Basically, it's all about people, their thoughts, stories with some emphasis towards the tourist products in town. Magazine was pre-presented during the Imandra Festival and got lots of attention immediately. As soon as the magazine would be available online, the following links to the full version will be provided.

Monchegorsk brand magazine (1st edition for now)
  • Dasha Yarkova,
    Sasha Polenkov,
    Regina Potekhina,
    Kirill Fokin,
    Dasha Budenkova,
    Sasha Stendere
    and others
    Thanks to Monchegorsk Development Agency team
  • Liza Lineva,
    Marat Kozlov,
    Lera Tikhonova
    Thanks to EBM agency for support
  • Kirill Fokin
    Brand manager
    (since 2023)
  • Viktor Krasovsky
    Brand designer
  • Natalia Makovsky
    Brand strategy
  • Igor Makovsky
    Brand managing, art direction, designer, communication
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