01
Efficiency
Time, budget and quality are the same conversation. The best work happens when a client allows enough of the first two. We still protect the third.
Windhoek · Since 2015
We make the complex, simple.
Nanewo Creative Studio is a brand practice for organisations that need to be understood. Publications, campaigns, packaging and identity — made in Namibia, and kept clear.
- Founded
- 2015
- Registration
- CC/2015/05177
- With
- BIPA
Organisations we have worked with
- GIZ
- Konrad Adenauer Stiftung
- NHAG
- Namibian Film Commission
- Debmarine Namibia
- WHO
- NORED
- Women’s Action for Development
- Empress Blends
- Fishcor
- World Bank Group
- Namibian Agronomic Board
- Agro-Marketing and Trade Agency
- Ministry of Health and Social Services
- Erongo Regional Council
- BlueBox Engineering Group
- Ministry of Urban and Rural Development
- Oshana Regional Council
- Otjozondjupa Regional Council
- NHCE
- Triple Capital
- Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare
- Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia
- University of Namibia
- National Heritage Council of Namibia
- Win Fast Technologies
Selected work
Work that had to be clear.
On the record
Further commissions, without a mockup to show.
These sit on Michael Gawanab’s project record as layout and design. They are listed because the work happened — not because a photograph of the piece is in the studio file.
- Fishcor2016Annual report — layout and design
- World Bank Group2021Project reports — layout and design
- Namibian Agronomic Board2025Annual report — layout and design
We are not big and brawny. We make up for that with smarts, passion, creativity and a clear sense of purpose.
About
A Windhoek studio, since 2015.
Nanewo Creative Studio works with owners, leaders and teams who need their presence designed, modernised and looked after. The legal name is NANEWO MEDIA SOLUTIONS CC, registered with BIPA as CC/2015/05177.
The useful sequence is simple. Understand the objective. Then make something practical. The best brands are the ones a person can explain back. That is the centre of the work — what the studio calls complex simplicity.
Pieces on this site were made for clients, except the CRAN concepts, which were a pitch. The studio does not pass other people’s work off as its own.
Michael Gawanab founded the studio and still designs and directs it. Before 2015 he worked as a designer and photographer at Omalaeti Media Group, as designer and operations manager at Medu-Letu Graphix, and as senior graphic designer at Space Dimensions Advertising.
Services
Branding first. The rest of the work hangs off that.
- 01
Brand identity
Names, marks and the rules that keep an organisation recognisable. Built so a smaller company can stand next to a larger one without looking borrowed.
- 02
Publications
Annual reports, country brochures and long books. The job is to make a dense organisation readable — figures, photographs and a path through the pages.
- 03
Campaigns
Posters, banners, workshop print and public information. One idea, strong enough to survive a gazebo, a hallway or a conference table.
- 04
Packaging
Labels and packs for products made here. Flavour, legal line, nutrition and shelf colour, decided together rather than stuck on at the end.
- 05
Digital
Websites and the digital side of a brand. The same idea, carried from paper onto a screen, without a second personality.
- 06
Production
Printers, photographers and suppliers. Concept is not the end of the job. We stay with quality until the piece exists.
Codes we live by
02
Brand vision
People do not choose on price alone. They choose a brand they can understand. A clear picture of where the organisation is going is part of the design, not a preface to it.
03
Brand growth
We would rather grow with a small organisation than decorate a large one once. An SME’s identity should be able to sit beside a corporation’s. A corporation’s should be able to travel.
Studio
Michael Gawanab
Founder · Brand strategist · Designer
He started Nanewo in Windhoek in 2015 and has kept it running since. The work is identities, publications and campaigns — from the first sketch through to a printer who will actually make it.
He works in English, Oshiwambo, Afrikaans and Otjiherero. That matters on a job like NORED, where a warning has to travel in more than one language.
Questions
Before you write.
What do you actually make?+
Branding is the centre. Around it: publications and reports, campaigns, packaging, websites, and the print production that gets the work into the world.
Who is the studio for?+
Owners and teams of small and medium organisations, and institutions that need a studio which will stay with the detail. No brief is treated as too small, or too large, to take seriously.
Where are you based?+
Windhoek. The studio trades as NANEWO MEDIA SOLUTIONS CC, registration CC/2015/05177 with BIPA. The work has included national organisations and international ones operating in Namibia.
Was the CRAN work published?+
No. The CRAN annual report and calendar are pitch concepts from 2019, shown so the thinking is visible. Other selected pieces were made for clients. Where something is a concept, the caption says so.
Do you only design, or do you produce?+
Both. The studio coordinates printers, photographers and suppliers, and stays on the job through to the finished piece.
How does a brief start?+
Write to nanewocs@gmail.com, call or WhatsApp +264 81 773 2951, or use the form on this page. A useful brief says what the piece is for, who it is for, and when it is needed.
Contact
Send the brief.
58 Jenner Street
Windhoek West
Windhoek, Namibia