Modernizing tradition with purpose.

Overview

A mark worth keeping.

Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc is a leading Secwépemc Nation in British Columbia, and its logo already carried meaning the community recognized.

The Nation approached Burst to refine and modernize that mark. Not to replace it, but to enhance its clarity, proportion, and digital compatibility, so that a mark made for one era of communication could hold up in another.

The engagement grew outward from there: a comprehensive suite of communication materials for staff across departments, and a website redesign that improves access to news, governance updates, and department content for members and the public alike.

The Challenge

Modernize without replacing.

A mark that carries cultural meaning cannot be redrawn casually.

The existing logo needed better clarity, proportion, and digital compatibility, but every adjustment had to retain what the mark already meant. The line between refinement and alteration is narrow here, and the work sits entirely on one side of it.

At the same time, teams across departments were communicating without a consistent set of materials, and the website was making information harder to find than it needed to be, two problems that look separate and are in fact the same problem in different media.

The brief was never a rebrand. It was a careful restoration, extended into everything the Nation uses.

Strategy

Redraw, don’t redesign.

Rather than replacing the mark, Burst worked directly from it, carefully redrawing the existing artwork with attention to clarity, proportion, and how it performs in modern formats.

Nothing was added for effect. Each refinement had to justify itself against a single question: does this help the mark do its job without changing what it says?

The adjustments allow the logo to hold its presence at all sizes and across various print and digital environments, from official correspondence to signage to a phone screen, while remaining unmistakably the same mark.

The Mark

Cultural meaning, retained.

The updated logo respects the original design while enabling consistency across every application the Nation needs it for.

Its colours carry the Nation’s palette: mountain lake teal, volcanic orange, golden glow, and midnight black. Together they reflect Nation symbolism with clarity and strength, and they hold their distinction in print, on screen, and in single colour.

The point of the exercise was continuity. Anyone who recognized the mark before recognizes it now, and it works in more places than it used to.

Print

Print in harmony.

Following the logo refinement, Burst developed a comprehensive suite of communication materials: business cards, letterhead, envelopes, email signatures, and presentation templates.

These assets were designed to provide internal teams with clarity, cohesion, and flexibility, and each was delivered in multiple layouts for use across departments. Departments have genuinely different needs, and a system that ignores that gets worked around rather than used.

The design approach prioritized structure and legibility, creating a consistent system that reinforces the Nation’s identity while supporting day-to-day communication needs in a professional, respectful format.

The result is a unified brand system that carries across digital and physical touchpoints, built with respect, functionality, and long-term use in mind.

Online

Bringing the brand online.

To reflect these visual updates in the digital space, Burst worked with the Nation’s communications team to redesign their website.

The updated platform features an organized, mobile-responsive layout that improves access to news, governance updates, and department-specific content for both members and the public, two audiences with different needs that the same site has to serve well.

The site balances cultural presence with practical navigation, supporting community transparency while making it easier for users to find information, contact staff, and stay informed.

The Impact

One identity, everywhere.

The Nation’s mark now performs consistently across print, signage, and digital, at every size it is asked to hold.

Departments share one set of materials rather than improvising their own, and the website is easier to navigate for members and the public alike.

The identity reads as one system instead of a collection of files, which is what makes it possible to maintain rather than something to be redone.

In Closing

Tradition, carried forward.

Modernizing an identity is not the same as changing it. The work here was to remove what got in the way and leave intact what matters.

That is a quieter kind of project than a rebrand, and often a more demanding one. Restraint has to be exercised on every decision rather than declared once at the start.

Burst’s role was to serve a mark the Nation already owned, and to make sure it can keep doing its job for a long time.