At the election of the non-permanent members of the UN Security Council in New York, Estonia received a mandate to become a member for the 2020-2021 term. The candidacy campaign was announced in 2017 at the New York Estonian House by the President of Estonia Kersti Kaljulaid.
The visual language of the campaign was developed by Jan Tomson (Estonian Design Team) in collaboration with the campaign team at the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, based on the brand Estonia visual language and materials. On behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the campaign’s brand manager was Tiia Nightingale.
The campaign was based on three principles: equality, efficiency, and empathy.
The main considerations for creating the identity were simplicity, clarity of messages, and the campaign’s conservative context of official international relations. Using elements of brand Estonia (Aino typeface, colours, graphic elements, e-words, messages etc) the UN campaign is part of the brand Estonia toolbox. The campaign was also the official pilot project for the brand. Using consistently the same messages and visuals enables us to be more const-effective and to reach a wider audience.
Estonia’s UN Security Council campaign’s brand manager at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Tiia Nightingale on the visual approach of the campaign: “Creating the branding and the visuals for the UN Security Council campaign was a very difficult process, because the visuals have to appeal to 193 countries! It has to be globally understandable, it can’t be offensive to anyone: not with its colours, or graphics, not to mention the messages. Our search started with the same question that we are always facing when introducing Estonia: “How to combine modern technology with nature?” At first our search for a global symbol lead to the blue kingfisher bird, but it felt too fragile in the context of the UN headquarters in New York. We decided to use the kingfisher for the EU presidency and continued brainstorming. When we chose the main keywords for the e-word based campaign, we started playing around with them visually and the circular word stamp was born. We marketed it as the quality stamp of Estonia and it worked very well and will continue to work as it communicates a timeless and positive message expressed in a clear way. The new brand of Estonia was the perfect basis for the UN campaign branding as it had a very befitting feel to it. We had some struggles with getting the blue tone of the campaign exactly right in different usage cases, but we were very demanding and thanks to a good collaboration with Estonian manufacturers we always achieved the desired result. I really like brand of Estonia’s Nordic briskness, the honesty, the youthful purity, the modernity and the human warmth, which is often communicated through the contrasting clear and cool tones. We got a lot of praise from the representatives of UN members for the clean forms and the stylishness of the visual language. I sincerely believe that the bright blue brand was a big help to the campaign both aesthetically and emotionally.”
“With the campaign we significantly grew Estonia’s reputation. We will continue to use the contacts we have made to build on our reputation as a digital society and to help our businesses to expand their operations outside the EU,” said Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs Urmas Reinsalu. Reinsalu emphasised that this is an historic event and a great day for Estonian diplomacy. Being a member of the UN Security Council will make Estonia much bigger on the map of the world.
“As a member of the UN, Estonia stands for those who fight against injustice and aggression and make a stand for their rights. Estonia is an active contributor to UN peace keeping missions, helping to resolve conflicts and to build up countries. Estonia is also a contributor to development and humanitarian aid. We want to stand for reducing poverty and to promote sustainable development and to fight against climate changes.”
Estonia will start working in the UN Security Council in 2020 and the campaign’s visual identity will be used throughout the membership period. Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs will continue working with the design team of brand Estonia.
Source: Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Enterprise Estonia