Description:

Manatū Hauora Ministry of Health co-designed with nationwide Iwi consultation a monumental strategic framework for delivering long term, healthy futures for Māori. We worked with the Māori Health Outcomes Team to create a distinctive brand and design system to engage the health community.

He Korowai Oranga is a design solution with warmth and humanity. The name means The Cloak of Wellbeing. The brand identity expresses the strength, character and beauty of a woven cloak. Korowai are a particular style of cloak with distinctive hukahuka, or tassels. The hukahuka add an energising sense of movement and life to a cloak. Inspired by this, we created a stylised, but dynamic representation of the hukahuka tassel, used flexibly and consistently throughout the brand.

The hukahuka motif creates connections, focus and organises information. When formed into tauira patterns, the hukahuka represents themes of mana, whānau and community resilience.

The cover of the two reports has the hukahuka arranged into Te Ara Wai pattern, a representation of navigating pathways towards an aspirational future. Within the reports is the Pātiki pattern, representing the health, wellbeing and resilience of a community.

The name of the first report, Whatua refers to the weaving together of the many voices and mātauranga knowledge that has given shape to He Korowai Oranga. Every voice is woven in and bound tight.

The name of the second report, Whakamaua refers to putting on the korowai, by embracing the principles and strategies within He Korowai Oranga.

Wrapped around the two reports is a simple, but visually impactful korowai sleeve. Printed externally with spot uv laminate, the hukahuka pattern resonates with energy, while saving the full reveal of the evocative patterns and flexible system to be revealed beneath. The two parts of the korowai sleeve are held together with a tie made out of native kiekie, harvested and dyed with traditional methods, woven into a four plait by master weaver, Rose Greaves from Ngāti Kahu and Ngā Puhi.

He Korowai Oranga is a uniquely Māori approach to health and wellbeing. For that reason, it needed a uniquely Māori expression. Within the korowai sleeve is a whakatauākī from Aperahama Taonui, said in 1840:

“E ngā rangatira, whakarongo mai! Kaua e ūwhia Te Tiriti i te kahu o Ingarangi, engari kia mau anō ki tōu ake kahu, te kahukiwi o Aotearoa nei!”

This is an encouragement for Māori to never forget their mana and and to put on Māori identity and values, as a cloak, a symbol of Māori self determination.

The inspirational image of a young woman in the korowai was gifted by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei and taken by Joe Hockley. As she stands atop her ancestral mountain, Takaparawhau, we see the vitality, security and resilience anticipated within He Korowai Oranga. Her view of the horizon evokes the core strategic objective of He Korowai Oranga -achieving new horizons of health for Māori.

Nō reira, he korowai oranga mō ngā iwi katoa, kia tū hauora ai tātou katoa.