WATER FEDERATION
The Water Federation represents water co-ops that build and operate the processing systems their communities depend on. Partway through a full refresh of its website and branding, it needed something a logo and a homepage cannot deliver on their own — a clear picture of what its members actually do, and who that work affects.
LENNART produced a five-episode documentary series on member co-op water systems, shot on location in southern Alberta and built to span the range of the membership, from small community systems to large-scale operations. The partnership is ongoing, with a second project underway.
the challenge
The Water Federation was rebuilding itself — website, branding, the way it explained its own work. What it didn't have was anything showing what its members actually do.
Water treatment is invisible by design. It works, so nobody thinks about it. And the people running it are spread across rural Alberta in systems that range from a handful of households to entire regions, which means there is no single site that represents the membership and no version of this story that can be told from a desk.
The Federation came to LENNART for a series of 5–7 minute films on its co-op members' processing systems. Enough depth to explain how a system actually works, and enough range to show that they are not all the same.
LENNART travelled to southern Alberta with a Water Federation project manager and met co-op members on site — learning how each system runs, who it serves, and what it takes to keep it going, before anything was filmed.
The result is a five-episode series spanning the full range of the membership, from one of the smallest processing systems to one of the largest. Every episode explains a working system in the words of the people who operate it.
It gave the Federation a straight answer, on film, to the question its refresh was built around: what do our members actually do.
conclusion
The series wasn't the end of the engagement. LENNART and The Water Federation are still working together, now on a project about the challenges member co-ops face and what those pressures mean for the communities depending on them.
Same subject, harder question, and a public that mostly doesn't know the issue exists.
