Nikel life changed drastically in 2020, when the old historic smelting plant had closed permanently. That means massive resident relocations and total change way of living for the locals, who used to work & live in a town, focused on industrial life. We had been asked to find the new meaning of the place, for the renewed Nikel after 2020. Refocus, redesigned. We wondered if tourism will fit, but at what cost?

While the industrial landscape is predominant in the settlement, wild natural sites are easy to reach. Citizens perceive this proximity to natural surroundings as an advantage of living in Nikel. This is what Nikel is all about:

We started working on Nikel in 2020, when covid strucked hard and disabled all the common way of communicating we all used to. So the whole territory was forbidden for visiting and we all started thinking online. Besides covid, we had family news and been distracted from work for a few months with the born of a baby. So we visited Nikel only in august, while launching project in the late spring with a baby roughly 2 mo.

We had been exploring the place from both sides of the border. Benefits from proximity towards each other appeared to be the obvious reason where to head further.

The brand's communication is open and friendly, informing that both Russia and Scandinavia head towards more cultural and tourism integration. For Russians, it is a "path to Scandinavia," and for people coming from Norway and Finland, it is the opposite: "path to Russia". Important step in going there is getting rid of obsolete stereotypes people had gained (with a reference that we loved — Satwcomic). The word way helps us making fun of it easily with just replacing to with too:

Ni (which stands for Nickel, obviously) was all what Nikel was about for the past century. The design also reflects the positive change at the place. The multiplied i in Nikel symbolizes growth and development. Phonetically hospitable word Niiiiiikel tells the new story: New Nikel is not a monotown, we have more: opportunities, services, visitors, investment, businesses". Different colors highlight various ways of the town's development.

The word way is the core of the brand and appears throughout brand communications in a perspective way. Most of slogans and communications had been put into the 3d perspecive to resemble the pathways or roads between Scandinavia and Russia.

Stereotypes and the industrial history of the place are the challenges to overcome with the new brand. Hills surrounding Nikel are covered with kerns or core samples, a cylindrical section of a naturally occurring substance, from the depths of Pechenga District. Kern is an element of the town's identity, geological and historical. We converted the industrial waste into local characters. They make jokes, tell stories in different languages, and will become the main guides in the upcoming Museum of Stereotypes. The only problem with these kerns is that they are not allowed to be put in the hand luggage in the airport.

All the content had been carefully collected in the brandbook. This time, we had been wiser when to speak about illustrated material and we got adhered to the principle of using readymade flat illustrations style, that can be bought on photo stocks easily, rather than personal art style. Brandbook was truly awesome, easy to use and plain for understanding. It had gone through all the approval stages, yet the world had other plans on it.

Niiikel international brand almost hasn't got any practical usage since release due to political circumstances, as of 2023. That means, all the ideas and concept on "Way to Russia/Way to Scandinavia" has never been used widely. Anyway, the next year after the release we moved slowly to part 2 of the project: the tourist map and friendly wayfinding design.

In 2022 the story of international focused tourism irrevocably aborted for the region that borders Finland and Norway. We started joking on the new rebranding, that we thought would sound somehow like this:

One of the most brightly revealed brand reincarnation is the Gastro Industry Festival held in Niiikel annualy since the brand release.