Welcome to our first of many ‘It’s Yarn Time!’ blog post! We’re excited to have you here! ‘It’s Yarn Time!’ is all about exploring the multiple layers of cultural story telling. While cultivating a space that promotes safe yarning, the importance of sharing stories and holding a collaborative space created for mob, by mob.
Through ‘It’s Yarn Time!’ we strive to strengthen our community by sharing culture and empowering those around us to dig deeper into their learnings of First Nations culture. Come on a journey with us in sharing and holding space for each other while we uplift community voices.
It only seemed fitting that we collaborate with a deadly design agency to bring to life our ‘For Our Mob’ logo. The colour and brand identity was developed collaboratively with Adam Cryer through completing a Brand Discovery Workshop with Leticia to gather a deeper insight into the vision of FOR OUR MOB. The colour palette holds significance drawing upon colours from Country and experiences of mob in North Sydney. Lauren who is a proud Wodi Wodi and Walbunja person from the Yuin Nation created our logo to reflect our safe cultural space. The logo represents a place of coming together where each person can be valued and respected. The yarning circle also represents the intentions behind building meaningful and respectful relationships for mob by mob.
To further support and reflect the purpose of our ‘It’s Yarn Time!’ space, the amazing creatives at Yirra Miya created our deadly brand identity. The cultural storytelling behind the illustrations were designed by Leticia Anne, a proud Wiradjuri Torres Strait Islander based on the Central Coast of NSW. She bought to life the vision for our website landing pages to connect to mob in a new and engaging way as a meeting place. The individual elements were brought together collaboratively with Brittany, a proud Biripi woman with Leticia. Want to learn more about what they mean? See below!
Cultural Integrity: The element depicts people gathering together. Learning and practicing Traditions and Culture. The elements at the top going around the circle represent knowledge sticks and they have been placed specifically around the yarning circles to symbolise the cultural knowledge that is spoken and shared during these times.
Interconnectedness: This element tells the story of the interconnectedness within our communities. The larger circles represent meeting places, while the smaller dots surrounding them represent the importance of the connection between the two meeting places.
Community Connection: This elements tells the story of community connection and consists of a yarning circle. The different layers represent the different layers of belonging that are important to our communities.
Leadership: This element reflects the story of leadership. Consisting of a ‘U’ shape to represent a person leading the way. While the outer layers represent people that are following in the footsteps of the person on their leadership journey. The lines that sit along the top represent knowledge sticks which are symbolic to the knowledge that the leader holds.
Knowledge and Understanding: This element tells the story of knowledge and understanding of our Cultural Traditions. The element consists of people gathered around meeting places with boomerangs. The meeting places are symbolic of people gathering around, learning and sharing knowledge of cultural traditions while the boomerangs represent our culture.
Journey on Country: This element tells the story of journey on Country. The lines represent the journey that was travelled across Country, while the cross hatching in the middle represents the land that was crossed while embarking on this journey.
How deadly does our brand identity look? We couldn’t be happier! “Yirra Miya’s Cultural Illustration services are a testament to the power of visual storytelling drawing on intuition from our ancestors, knowledge from our Elders and guidance from our communities”. Our Cultural Elements created by Yirra Miya’s Cultural Designers are more than just designs – “they’re bridging the past , present and future”. Yirra Miya is Wiradjuri for ‘’Growing Together” and here at For Our Mob, we can’t wait to grow, learn and connect with those around us through this space.