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PAOS' track record in public agency innovation:Oyama Hibikinosato

Logomark Oyama Hibikinosato

Trade name
: Bungo-Oyama Hibikinosato
http://www.hibikinosato.co.jp/
Project start date
: 2000
Presentation date
: 2002
Co-creators
: Akira SANADA, Norito SHIMURA, Akihiko KIMURA, Keiko FUKUI

A community-based project that made use of resources unique to its locale, began in a remote mountain district and went on to become a model for the age of regional hegemony.

Our brief was to turn a complex containing hot springs, an inn, restaurants, an atelier and a liqueur factory that had been built in the town of Oyama in a remote part of Oita prefecture into an attractive and distinctive destination. Famed as the birthplace of the "one village, one product" campaign, Oyama was a small mountain community with a population of around 2,000. PAOS, which was approached by a band of progressive leaders captained by Mr. Zenpachiro MITOMA, the mayor of Oyama, established a new concept for a regionally independent identity and put forward a VI system proposal that centered on a distinctive character logo that had been developed utilizing an area of land created by local young people. The outcome: the visitor target for the inaugural year was reached within five months, that for local produce within eight. However, through the widespread drift towards consolidating smaller municipalities, Yamamoto, this star twinkling in the regional firmament, was fated to be merged with the town of Hita.

The first task in developing a systematic community identity for Oyama, Oita prefecture, a remote mountain village with a population of some 2,000, was to create a conceptual model.

The first task for Hibikinosato, a model project for regionally-oriented design guidelines, was to draw up a set of rules for the creation and deployment of a character symbol that was based on an area of land that had been researched by local young people.

Patterns used for the symbols displayed at each of the complex's facilities.

The sign on the road approaching the village

Signs in use at the complex's accommodation facility

Products developed using the Hibikinosato logotype and the Japanese plum blossom motif. Japanese plum blossoms are their regional specialty.

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