“We’re a world-class research centre … but we have no logo or identity to unify all that we do.”
The Centre for Heritage and Culture is a world-class research centre at The University of Southern Queensland (USQ) that works in partnership with communities to uncover the invisible, forgotten stories of regional Australia’s past. The Centre uses these stories to support community wellbeing and to bolster the heritage and identity of people and place. Their numerous interdisciplinary research partnerships – across archaeology, history, heritage studies, cultural studies, law and creative arts – encourage participation from diverse regional voices: from Indigenous peoples, youth and migrants to regional Australians, LGBTQIA+ peoples and people with disability. The Centre has been doing incredible work for years … but have very little brand recognition.
The Centre came to us in dire need of a logo to express and unify their many internal and external partnerships. They were seeking to raise the profile of the Centre and its research to attract more collaborators and funding and to make even more of an impact on Australia’s regional communities.
Following an in-depth interview with key staff, we recognised the Centre’s need for greater brand recognition and, most vitally, a logo that would lend them at-a-glance credibility equal to their impressive and meaningful work. We began by designing a bold, colourful and professional logo as a symbol of the collaborations the Centre makes with communities and people from all walks of life… to help their brand stand out in its field, be heard and grow.
…it’s confident, clean and professional, but we also ensured the Centre will stand out from its competitors and collaborators to garner attention.
We used Aktiv Grotesk – a pleasing, balanced san-serif typeface – to meticulously create well-aligned, clean and crisp typography, which we paired with bursts of colour.
For this brand, we developed a wide and bright colour palette to represent the many academic schools, communities and people the Centre draws together to collaborate and form partnerships.
We told a diverse-yet-connected story across every element we created for the Centre, from the alternate versions of the logo itself to the colour palette in their style guide, and even the pattern we designed as a secondary branding element to be used as an overlay on images across their stationery, signage and more.
Thank you very much!
