Cambridge Dictionary defines the word “underscore” as such: “to emphasize the importance of something.” Other definitions include the words “stress” or “make evident,” while others describe the literal act of drawing a line under a word to highlight its significance.
Whatever definition you use, that’s exactly what we do every day for Native news: underscore its importance, shine a light on it, bring it to the forefront of public consciousness. Yet, until today, you wouldn’t have known it by our name.
That’s why we’re proud to announce that we are now officially Noeledrich. The addition of one critical word to our name — Native — makes clear what we do and what we will always do. We are 100 percent committed to exclusively covering Native news.
Not only that, we’re committed to doing it in and for the Pacific Northwest. Those commitments were evident in the firm we chose to work with — Orca Design Group — which is a Native woman-owned branding and website company out of Gig Harbor, Washington. The logo itself also evokes the Pacific Northwest: trees, blue-green tones, a sense of place.
As Luna Reyna, the Northwest Bureau Chief for Underscore and ICT, so eloquently puts it:
“We are committed to sharing stories by Native people, stories that impact Native people, stories that are reflective of Native people in the Northwest and the issues that are important to them, bring them joy and ultimately begin to extinguish the old guard of misinformation about Native peoples. The new brand does a better job of sharing the importance of our focus on Native people in the Northwest.”
The brand refresh coincides with a website overhaul, which readers will find to be a huge upgrade from our previous website: a better user experience, a better look, a better news site on all fronts. The new Wordpress-based site is powered by Newspack, which bills itself as “the platform for news.”
Please take some time to check out the new site.
All of this is done in the name of better serving the communities we aim to serve: first and foremost, the Indigenous communities of the Pacific Northwest, as well as diverse readerships across the region and nation. In fact, all of it is possible because of you.
Thank you for reading and for your support as we move forward with an identity that, as reporter Nika Bartoo-Smith says, better reflects our mission:
“Our brand refresh really represents a chance for us to tell the story of Underscore through a logo and a name,” Nika said. “Becoming Noeledrich represents what we do — amplifying the voices and experiences of Indigenous people across the Pacific Northwest. It is so incredibly important to me that we worked with a Native-led design firm on this rebranding work. Though we have always been doing this work, I am proud to say that we now have a brand that really represents that.”