Blue Heart

A true pioneer in their space, Patagonia is making strides to protect our world. In our latest collaboration, we helped the team at Patagonia amplify Blue Heart: a documentary that aims to spread awareness about the dark side of hydropower in the Balkan region. Together, we created an immersive digital experience that illustrates just how destructive dams can be to the ecosystems and local communities that surround them.

Elderly shepherd in a shaggy black cloak and white cap holding a staff, his flock grazing behind him

Aerial view of a blue river splitting around tree-covered islands and small waterfalls

Branding

While it's one thing to read about the environmental decline of the Blue Heart region, it's quite another to see it first-hand. We put Patagonia's rich, captivating photography and videography at the center of our branding approach to make the reality of the situation unmissable for the viewer. We paired these powerful visuals with a bold, distressed typography, emphasizing the urgency and the gravity of the situation.

Piecing it together

The truth is dams cause immense destruction to the communities, wildlife and ecosystems that surround them; we wanted this to come through loud and clear conceptually. We developed an approach using torn paper to represent the impact on local communities and the fragility of the natural world. We printed each image, carefully tore it apart, scanned the remaining elements and pieced them back together to create the final, fractured scenes.

Torn-paper collage of a woman crouching to drink from her hand opposite a cleared valley of tree stumps

Blue Heart film poster with torn-paper layers of a shepherd, a waterfall and a hillside village

Blue Heart website home page with the title over a torn-paper collage of a dam between green valley slopes

A Visual Narrative

With so many dams awaiting construction in the Balkan region, it was also important to demonstrate the sheer magnitude of the problem. To do this, we paired vignettes of individual people with a bird's eye view of the system-wide destruction, allowing viewers to explore the region and experience the effects at once.