NHBP Tribal Police cars were in need of an updated design. The original designs were made to mimic the local county Police Department designs. With the Tribe's increase in recognition over the years, a redesign that reflected more on the Tribe's culture was necessary. The new design primarily features the turtle or Mshiké, which is the symbol of the Notawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi. A minimal triangle applique is also featured in the design that symbolizes the 13 month, 28 day lunar cycle, represented by the 13 scute on a turtle's shell. Logos featured on the design include the NHBP Tribal Logo, the medicine wheel, and a patch for missing or murdered indigenous people and trafficking awareness.
This project had previous work done on it and was passed on to myself. Initially, I had open direction with the project. Tribal leadership provided some direction they would like to see. Using the information given to me, and the existing work on the project, I created a moodboard to hone in on a design concept.
The two main design concepts that adhered to requests from tribal leadership were a tribal aesthetic, and a concept using the eagle staff. An additional direction I moved in involved the Tribe's iconic animal, the turtle. I also included the medicine wheel in concepts as a Tribal symbol. Initial concepts used low-fidelity shapes/designs in order to block out the general idea and layout of the final design.
I opted to go with the tribe's color scheme in the initial sketches and carried it through to the final ideas. Typography was also experimented with. After the initial mockups were created, they were sent to Tribal leadership for feedback. An additional concept of the "13 shells" or 13 month lunar calendar was proposed. Originally, first concepts included a Tribal applique in the form of triangles, but the idea had no direction. With this new concept, I applied the idea of 13, 28 day months into the applique itself for some minimal, but culturally significant symbolism. With the feedback from leadership, I took to heightening the fidelity of the turtle concept while trying to maintain the minimal, silhouette-like style of the form.
