Brand IdentityLogo DesignPresentation DesignWeb Design Collaboration
NinNova — End-to-End Brand Identity for a Sustainable Urban Vision
Client
NinNova Inc.
Industry
Sustainable Urban Development
Location
Quebec, Canada
Tools
Illustrator, Canva, Adobe CC
“This was not just a logo. It was a symbol that had to hold an entire urban philosophy, connect three ecosystems, and look like the future of city living. I built it from the architecture up.”
The Vision
A city within a city
NinNova was an ambitious urban development concept for Quebec: 10,000 homes, ecological public transport with direct access to REM Brossard and the Saint-Hubert airport, innovative urban agriculture, and modern green infrastructure designed from the ground up.
The project attracted architects from Spain whose building designs drew from beehive geometry, modular living, and biophilic architecture. The brief for the brand identity was to visually represent all of this while positioning NinNova as a luxury green development, not just another housing project.
The Design Brief
One mark. Five ideas.
The logo had to communicate green architecture, modern sustainable living, transit connectivity, community, and a luxury positioning all at once. It also needed to feel original, not like a recycled eco-brand.
That is a complex brief for a single mark. Most logos that try to say too much say nothing. The challenge was finding the one shape that could carry all of this without becoming busy or generic.
5+
Logo iterations
10K
Homes in the development plan
3
Ecosystems in the logo mark
1
Unified identity system
The Logo Process
From concept to mark — the full journey
A logo this complex does not arrive fully formed. It comes through iteration, rejection, and refinement. Showing that process here is intentional. Every version that did not work brought me closer to understanding what the mark needed to be. This is what a real design process looks like.
Early Iterations
What did not work and why
The early versions explored different ways to represent the three core elements of the project. Some relied too heavily on literal leaf or tree shapes that felt generic in the eco-branding space. Others had the right structural idea but lacked the luxury positioning the project demanded.
Each rejected version clarified the brief further. The mark needed to feel architectural, not botanical. It needed geometry, not illustration. And it needed to reference the beehive structure of the buildings without copying it literally.
The Breakthrough
The Tri-Hex Crown
The answer came from the buildings themselves. The Spanish architects had based their structural designs on the geometry of a beehive, using hexagonal modular units that connect and stack. I took that same geometry and turned it into the mark.
The final logo mark, which I call the Tri-Hex Crown, is three connected hexagons arranged in a triangular formation. Each hexagon is open on one end and terminated with a custom leaf motif that represents organic growth. The whole structure was hand-built in Adobe Illustrator from scratch, with no template or clip art.
Each of the three hexagons holds one key visual element representing the three ecosystems of the development: agriculture and green living, water and landscape management, and community and human connection. Together they form a single unified mark that reads as both architectural and organic at once.
Hexagon 1
Agriculture and green living
Wheat stalks and cultivated landscape representing NinNova’s urban agriculture system and the green living philosophy embedded in every building and shared space.
Hexagon 2
Architecture and landscape
Flowing horizontal lines representing water management, ecological landscape design, and NinNova’s commitment to working with the natural environment rather than against it.
Hexagon 3
Community and connection
Connected human figures in motion representing the residents and community at the heart of NinNova, and the transit connections to REM Brossard and Saint-Hubert airport that link the development to the wider city.
Brand Identity System
Colour, typography, and voice
With the mark resolved, the identity system needed to carry the same tension: sophisticated and ecological, modern and grounded. Every decision in colour, typography, and tone of voice was made to reinforce that NinNova was not an eco-brand wearing luxury clothes. It was a luxury brand that happened to be leading the way in sustainable development.
Gradient
Teal to Blue
Teal
#1A9E8A
Blue
#2563A8
Green
#3A8C4A
Burgundy
#8B2252
Dark
#1C1C1C
Print and Collateral
Bringing the brand into the physical world
After the logo and identity system were locked, I applied the brand across all print and physical touchpoints. Business cards were designed to feel premium in hand, using the gradient background for the front face and the brand’s clean typographic system on the back. The card design was produced for multiple team members while staying fully consistent across all versions.
- Business card design — front and back
- Brand guidelines documentation
- Investor presentation decks in Prezi and Canva
- Web design direction and external collaboration
Presentation Design
Decks that earned the room
NinNova needed to present to government stakeholders and private investors. I designed the full deck system in Prezi and Canva, translating a complex urban development concept into a narrative that could earn trust and capture attention in a single meeting. Layout hierarchy, data visualization, and brand application all had to work together under pressure.
Design is not decoration. A brand identity that carries the right values, earns attention in the right rooms, and holds together across every format. That is what design does when it is working at its best.
Project Outcome
Advanced planning stage. Real stakes.
NinNova reached an advanced planning stage before being paused. The brand identity, presentation decks, and web collaboration were completed in full. The design played a real role in bringing a complex vision to a level of credibility that could stand in front of serious stakeholders.
The project did not launch. The work is real.
