Nature positive Portsmouth
Client
Portsmouth City Council
Services
Brand Identity, Video Production, Graphic Design
Year
2026
Portsmouth is a dense, coastal city traditionally defined by its naval heritage and industry, yet it possesses a quiet resilience found in its hidden nature and strong community stewardship. As the city approaches its 100th year in 2026, there is a critical need to recognise nature not as a ‘nice to have’, but as essential infrastructure in protecting Portsmouth’s future.
Portsmouth City Council didn’t need another awareness campaign destined to be admired and forgotten. They needed someone who could change a belief and turn that shift into action residents could actually take.
That’s why they came to us. Floom was brought in to do what stock imagery and polished messaging can’t: tell Portsmouth’s story back to itself, honestly. Real residents, real places, real work. We were trusted to build not just a campaign, but a living design system the Council could own and keep running long after launch — connecting the city’s ecological roots to its community pride.
The Brief
01
Shift Perceptions
The core challenge was a mindset, not a marketing gap. People assumed there was "no nature here," when in truth it was all around them, just unnoticed. Our job was to flip that story city-wide — to make residents see the trees, the wildflowers, the birds in the harbour as part of their everyday Portsmouth.
02
Documentary-Led Storytelling
Floom was asked to build a campaign rooted in real life, not stock imagery or polish. The brief called for a documentary-led approach that reflects Portsmouth back to itself: genuine residents doing genuine work, in the places they know. The honesty was the point - people trust what they recognise.
03
A Reusable Design System
This couldn't be a campaign with a shelf life. The Council needed a kit of evergreen assets ; a central booklet, a digital campaign hub and a suite of social templates — designed so that local teams could pick them up, adapt them and keep them running long after the launch noise had faded. Built to be owned, not just admired.
Approach
01
A "Roots" Creative Concept
01 The "Roots" Creative Concept — We anchored everything to a single, resonant idea: Roots. It works on three levels at once : the city's living ecological systems, the generations of people who've quietly tended the place, and the legacy being planted now for those who come next. That one concept gave us the connective thread that pulled three separate films into a single, coherent story arc.
02
Interweaving Past and Future
To ground the work in Portsmouth's long history, we paired crisp digital cinematography with the grain and warmth of 16mm film. Archival materials – naval blueprints and historical maps were all shot physically on film to capture a tactile, distinctly human texture. The effect quietly reinforces the theme: this kind of care for place isn't new, it stretches back generations.
03
A Human-First Visual Language
Developed in collaboration with Sophat Studio, the design direction leaned warm, textural and unmistakably real. Hands in soil, local faces, hand-drawn sketches ; we deliberately chose imagery that makes nature-positive action feel normal, easy and achievable, the sort of thing anyone in the city could do this weekend rather than a cause reserved for experts.
Challenges
01
Challenging the Nature-Void Narrative
The central hurdle wasn't visibility, it was belief. Portsmouth's dense urban and maritime identity had left many residents convinced there was simply no nature here. To shift that perception we had to surface the city's hidden ecological roots: the coastal marshes, the salt-tolerant plants, the urban tree canopy quietly doing its work — and reframe nature not as something missing, but as essential infrastructure already thriving on people's doorsteps.
02
Overcoming Creative Resistance —
Authentic documentary storytelling meant reckoning with real barriers: income inequality, transport, and the time poverty that keeps good intentions from becoming action. The harder task was tonal. Get it slightly wrong and the message reads as preachy, middle-class, or an authority telling people what to do — and the audience switches off. So every face, voice and frame had to feel honest, local and genuinely accessible, the kind of thing residents recognise rather than resent.
03
Translating Sentiment into Action
City campaigns are good at racking up views; they're far worse at changing what people actually do. The real risk here was positive sentiment with no participation — plenty of warm feeling, no one stepping outside. The answer was a reusable design system built to push past awareness, giving residents small, low-friction nudges that turn a moment of digital engagement into a real visit to a real green space.
Client feedback
don’t just take our word for it
Conclusion
Our work with Portsmouth City Council captured a city ready to adapt. By connecting ecological roots to community pride, the campaign shifted how people see urban nature — and left the Council with a system it can keep using to inspire action well into Portsmouth’s next century.
