Misato Town in Shimane Prefecture is a small town with a population of 4600. This is a rebranding project to promote the town to the outside world. The project started with a request to create the world’s best website in order to increase the number of people who are interested in the town, and in addition to the website, we supported various activities such as renewing the business cards of the town office staff, distributing tabloids throughout the town, and holding a photo exhibition.

While there are many local development projects that are led by the government and do not gain the sympathy of the residents, what was important for this project was to express the town of Misato in such a way that the residents themselves would fall in love with it first and foremost. We believed that only when each of the townspeople has words that can be spoken from the heart, will there be real value in communicating outside the town. We discovered the uniqueness of things, people, and landscapes that are familiar to the townspeople, and carefully refined each and every one of them in our output.

The assets we created for this project were diverse. What we aimed for in the photography was not just a superficial “nice view.” Getting to know the town, getting to know the people, and building a deep relationship with them during the long stay were important steps in the photography. Illustrations, on the other hand, are created to bring an instant identity that cannot be achieved with photographs.
In addition to this, we are steadily increasing the number of assets that can withstand any future development, such as the naming of the project, “Misatoto.”, copywriting, and original typefaces. All of this is also available online for any town resident to use for any commercial or non-commercial purpose.

The website “Misatoto.”, which was released in September 2019, received a huge response, especially on SNS, and received about 840,000 organic impressions within a month of its release. The website has since won various design awards and has been featured on TV and in newspapers several times.
In addition, the assets that were released free of charge have been widely used in various scenes, and even today, the “Misatoto.” brand continues to expand on its own.