Have a log teach you about trees.

Colorado’s forests are iconic towering pines, clean air, and water, endless recreation. But they’re not in great shape. Years of mismanagement and climate pressure have left many ecosystems vulnerable, dry, and overgrown—fuel for the kind of wildfires that are becoming all too common. The Colorado Mass Timber Coalition (CMTC) came to Wunder Werkz with a mission: build a brand that could explain how mass timber could actually help.

CMTC isn’t a small operation. It’s a coalition of 360+ members across more than 150 public and private organizations; foresters, builders, researchers, planners, developers, agencies, all trying to make mass timber viable in Colorado’s next generation of buildings. Their goals are complex but critical: create local jobs, support healthier forests, revitalize rural economies, and reduce embodied carbon in construction. We were brought in to unify those messages into one bold, approachable, and educational visual identity.

We built a system that tugged on the heat strings, reminiscent of a time when we had a closer relationship with nature and cared a bit more if the world burned or not. The wordmark is custom, lowercase, and affable. Colors are pulled straight from the Colorado landscape: pine green, alpenglow orange, sky white. The photos are inspired by 70s mountaineering publication and are saturated and gritty, like an old trail map that’s seen some weather.

The system is brought to life through a bit of anthromorphication of our friend the Douglas Fir, and how it contributes to a healthy environment. A tree, a log, and a beam of mass timber, each a mascot standing in for a chapter of the story: how trees become a tool for forest health and a more sustainable built environment. The characters are tied together by one simple visual thread, eyes. Applied across the system, the eye motif turns ordinary materials into educators, giving trees and timber just enough personality to get people curious. When that curiosity turns into learning, the brand started to do its job.

Creating a playful, human-centered identity around an academic, deeply technical subject wasn’t without its challenges. We had to learn the science, from embodied carbon, product pipelines, wildfire dynamics to working closely with experts to make sure nothing got lost in translation. This brand had to speak to everyone from climate scientists to third graders on a field trip. So it had to be generous, clear, and unafraid to be weird.

At its core, this is a story about stewardship in Colorado and how we handle our forests, the economy, build for the future. CMTC is working to build something real, durable, and scalable. Our job was to help it speak with clarity and conviction, and to make mass timber something people want to talk about. Because trees can grow back. And maybe good ideas can too.