Amplifying Indigenous Voices

Nia Tero

Website Design & Brand Identity

Nia Tero is a non-profit organization who works in solidarity with Indigenous peoples who sustain thriving territories and cultures to strengthen guardianship of Earth and all beings. Nia Tero believes that the peoples who call these places home are the best guardians of their cultures’ vital birthplaces, and that supporting the rights and livelihoods of Indigenous peoples, and following their leadership, is critical to the health of our planet as a whole. Nia Tero envisions an Earth where Indigenous guardianship of thriving homelands and waters is enabled everywhere possible.

With a young but established identity, Nia Tero needed a more robust website to better communicate the breadth of their mission and values to a broader audience and to feature and support their growing work, partnerships and initiatives in a fresh, grounded and approachable way.

Client

Nia Tero

Disciplines

Identity,

Digital

Steward. Support. Protect. A spotted feather on a light circular background
A carved wooden totem pole detail alongside a group of Pacific Islander dancers performing in traditional grass skirts beneath palm trees at dusk
Three website design mockups featuring headlines: 'Indigenous peoples are the best guardians of their own homes,' 'Policy and advocacy to sustain collective territories,' and 'Stories of Indigenous Guardianship'
Three website design mockups featuring headlines: 'Elevating the power of Indigenous voices,' 'Securing 60M hectares of thriving forest landscape,' and 'Indigenous peoples sustain 80% of the healthiest ecosystems on Earth'
Mobile website design mockups showcasing pages with headlines including 'Thriving Peoples. Thriving Places.,' 'Steward. Support.,' 'Uplifting and amplifying Indigenous Peoples through storytelling,' 'Securing 60M hectares of thriving forest landscape,' and 'Sharing commitments. Safeguarding our home.'
Two overlapping circular images: unfurling fiddlehead ferns on a white background, and a campfire glowing beneath a night sky with northern lights

Nia Tero Initiative : Reciprocity Project

Nia Tero supports and creates initiatives that align with their mission and values to support Indigenous guardianship of the environment and the amplification of Indigenous voices. Reciprocity Project is a short film series and multimedia platform dedicated to educating audiences about time-honored and current Indigenous ways of being through storytelling.

Turnstyle created a visual identity system that was related to the Nia Tero parent organization but had a unique look and feel of its own. Reciprocity wanted to feel distinctively fresh, young and progressive yet still organic and rooted. We applied the visual identity to a number of touchpoints including website, social media, digital advertising and swag.

Reciprocity Project logo

Everything in Reciprocity

The logo is evocative of both a lens which captures Indigenous stories and seven waves symbolizing the seven continents of the earth and the interconnected fluidity of being. It’s circular form and organic rendering further enforces the concept of endless reciprocity and sets a strong precedence for the use of circles through out the system.

A cowboy on a pale horse herding cattle across a snowy desert landscape
Person wearing a carved wooden Indigenous ceremonial mask with antlers, standing before a waterfall

Mandalas

Inspired by the form and concept of the logo, mandalas are a unique graphic representation of layered cultures and environments in reciprocity throughout the earth—a conceptual lens into multiple corners of the world. They may be used in many ways to tell a variety of stories about Indigenous ways of being.

A collage of four images: a bearded man tending plants in a garden, an adult teaching a child wood carving, a person playing a flute at night, and a landscape of rolling green hills meeting the ocean with text reading 'Restore Balance'
A collage of Reciprocity Project website and mobile designs, featuring the platform's visual identity applied across desktop and responsive layouts.
Brand style guide showing typography samples for Work Sans and Quincy CF fonts alongside a color palette of teal, blue, dark green, mauve, orange, tan, and gray
Four Reciprocity Project Instagram post mockups featuring a mandala nature collage, the brand logo over a mountain landscape, a person with text reading 'we are all connected,' and a grid of Indigenous community portraits
Layered circular composition with forest, tropical, and campfire imagery

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