Zasavje Regional Development Agency
New Story of Zasavje: an identity, a voice and a plan for a coal region's just transition
Communication strategy, visual identity, copy, leaflet, promotional materials and website design for the Zasavje Just Transition Center
- Client
- Zasavje Regional Development Agency
- Year
- 2023–2024
Zasavje is one of the European coal regions that the EU's Just Transition Fund is helping to move from coal to a low-carbon economy. When the Zasavje Regional Development Agency set up the Zasavje Just Transition Center in 2023, the Center needed everything at once: a plan for addressing a region that had already lived through one transition, an identity people would trust and a language they would understand. We prepared the communication strategy, a visual identity with the slogan New Story of Zasavje, the copy, a leaflet, promotional materials and the design of the website.
In numbers
- 15
- Target groups, each with an analysis of its communication gaps and its own key messages.
- 18
- Texts and templates, from the slogan and the leaflet to messages for companies, NGOs and young people.
- 3 years
- After handover, the slogan and the logo still greet visitors to the just transition website.
The challenge
Zasavje has been saying goodbye to coal for a long time. The Trbovlje-Hrastnik mine was closed down between 1999 and 2015, and the region still feels the consequences: unemployment, emigration, an ageing population and degraded areas. The Just Transition Fund now offers 74.6 million euros in grants for its restructuring. The Zasavje Just Transition Center is the central information and support point that helps companies, municipalities, NGOs and residents make use of them.
In communication terms, that is a demanding job. The phrase just transition is not as familiar to people as green transition. And in a region that missed its first chance to soften the blow when the mine closed, one objection comes easily: it would have been just if this had happened back then.
The strategy: trust comes first
The strategy does not dodge the awkward question. It starts with it. Zasavje missed the first train, but this time there is a plan that takes the region forward step by step, and a Center that connects everyone who can take part. From that starting point we defined the Center's vision and mission, nine communication goals, the channels, the key messages and the tone of voice.
We split communication into two phases. In the first, the Center introduces itself and the just transition to the widest possible public in the region. In the second, it addresses those who can take part in a specific project and reports on its effects.
The thread running through all communication
We missed the first train for a just transition. But acting late is better than never acting.
Fifteen target groups, each with its own message
Calls for proposals, incentives and help with applications.
Local business owners often do not know how the Center can help them. The strategy provides for personal invitations, events scheduled around the working day and clear information on funding for the green transformation.
Joining forces on projects.
The Center offers NGOs and youth organisations help with obtaining funds and the Zasavje Just Transition label, which they can use to mark their own events and activities.
A first job at home.
People aged 15 to 29 are swamped with information, so they get short summaries, an interactive approach and short videos on social media. For schoolchildren, the strategy proposes art workshops on the Zasavje of the future and an exhibition in the town centres.
Reporting on what has already been done.
Those who work in the region have little trust in institutions after past experience, so the Center reports on changes that have already happened. Commuters who work elsewhere and job seekers are told where new jobs are being created in the region.
The region's clear advantages.
Investors from elsewhere are won over by a clear overview of the region's advantages and a personal approach, decision-makers by a personal invitation and a focus on impact and results.
Reports and good practice.
The Center reports to the European Commission and shares good practice with the platform for coal regions and partners abroad. That is why the leaflet is also available in English.
A language everyone understands
European funds are usually written about in the language of tenders. So the strategy sets five rules for every message and a tone of voice: expert but understandable standard language, the polite form of address throughout, even when the Center speaks to schoolchildren, and just a pinch of the Zasavje dialect, always in quotation marks.
Five rules for every message
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Credible
Data are backed by sources, and the copy is grammatically flawless.
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Proactive
We do not sugar-coat sensitive topics. We answer the why, how and when before anyone asks.
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Clear
No tender-speak or legalese, so that a secondary-school student, a business owner and a pensioner all understand the message.
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Inclusive
In the first person plural, without pointing fingers.
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Optimistic
Even an unwelcome message shows what can be improved.
The same message, twice
- The project consortium will allocate cohesion funds to the revitalisation of degraded areas.
- Although we have been preparing for it for years, this period will be very hard.
- The Zasavje Just Transition Center and regional companies are preparing an event for secondary-school students.
- Companies will use European funds to jointly restore the abandoned parts of Zasavje where the traces of coal mining can still be seen.
- We have prepared for the challenging period ahead with several years of planning.
- At the Zasavje Just Transition Center, we are preparing an event for secondary-school students together with regional companies.
The identity: from coal to leaf
The symbol tells the same story as the strategy. The hard, angular shapes of coal turn into green leaves step by step, because the transition does not happen overnight: the Center leads it in stages, with a plan. From the shapes of the symbol we developed the fifth element of the identity, layers of green and blue that recall the hills of Zasavje.
There are two logos. The first marks the Center. The second, Zasavje Just Transition, is for every activity and organisation that takes part in the transition. That way, an event the Center does not organise itself can carry the same story.
We carried the identity over to everything the Center uses to face people: roll-up banners, signboards, business cards, letterhead, a pad and a notebook, pens, T-shirts, posters, a web banner and an e-mail signature. For day-to-day work the Center received templates it can use on its own: for presentations, social media posts in three formats, newsletters, invitations and a background for online meetings.
Words for every occasion
A strategy without copy stays in a drawer, so we wrote the copy in advance. The result was 18 texts and templates: a short and a longer presentation of the Center, a description of the strategic projects, messages for companies, NGOs and public institutions, presentations of the regional conference and the just transition academy, and templates for announcing a call for proposals, presenting a successful project and inviting people to an event.
Young people got a set of their own: a longer and a shorter presentation, a template for social media posts and a draft script for a video story showing an ordinary day of a young person from Zasavje in 2030, when the transition has already succeeded.
From the presentation for young people
Pickaxes belong in museums. Coal mining is the past. The computer will replace the miner's toolbox and pickaxe.
The leaflet sums up the essentials on a single sheet: what a just transition is, what it means for Zasavje and which four areas of measures the territorial plan provides for. We prepared it in Slovenian and in English.
The website
For the main channel, the just transition website, we prepared the design: a landing page with news, the transition in numbers, the areas of measures, the academy and current calls for proposals, adapted to computer, tablet and phone.
Timeline
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August 2023
Research and identity
A review of the region and of good practice, the story of the symbol, the two logos, colours and typography.
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September 2023
Strategy and copy
The communication strategy, 18 texts and templates, and the leaflet.
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October 2023
Handover
The brand manual, printed materials and templates, ready to use.
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April 2024
English leaflet
The leaflet for the international public.
What we made
- Communication strategy for the just transition period
- Analysis of 15 target groups and a communication matrix
- Rules for writing messages and the tone of voice
- The slogan New Story of Zasavje
- 18 texts and templates
- Leaflet in Slovenian and English
- Two logos and the brand manual
- Website design
- Roll-up banners, signboards and posters
- Business cards, letterhead, pad, notebook, pens and T-shirts
- Templates for presentations, social media, newsletters and invitations
- Web banner, e-mail signature and online meeting background
The result
In its very first year, the Zasavje Just Transition Center got everything it needs to speak with one voice: a strategy, an identity, copy and materials it can use on its own. The just transition website still greets visitors with the slogan and the logo, and beneath them stands a sentence from our copy: the just transition of Zasavje is a strategic programme that will transform Zasavje from a traditional coal region into a competitive, high-tech and low-carbon one.
Where this project sits in our matrix
We work across all of these layers, and any combination is possible.
- Who we worked for
- Executive leadershipCorporate communicationsHRMarketingPublic sector
- Project scope
- Small brand storyAlways-on communicationBig brand story (a full campaign)
- What we improved
- ProcessesRelationshipsContent
- How we approached it
- StrategicallyDigitally, with AICreativelyIn an advisory role
- How long?
- Short-term (up to 3 months)Mid-term (3–12 months)Long-term (a year or more)
- What we created
- DocumentsPresentationsVisual identitiesDesignWebsitesSocial mediaCopywritingPhotographyVideo storiesAnimationsPodcastsEventsWorkshops