Jun 22, 2010
A New Vision For Tasmania
Tasmania is a dynamic place. As an innovative, modern economy it offers unparalleled opportunity and diversity, which is crowned by an iconic, ancient landscape. Our people are proud and resourceful, creating a vibrant community that has a place for everyone.
The State Sphere represents a unified Tasmania, moving forward with harmony and balance. Inspired by the people, it’s a reflection of Tasmanian identity that becomes complete through individual interpretation and experience. Conceived as a symbol of optimism, it delivers to the government and the people a new vision for the future.
Like Tasmania itself, this is an identity that looks to the future. Inspired by the timeless sense of place that Tasmania offers, it exists as a fluid, dynamic symbol which constantly flows, pulses and cycles. It is tailor made for the age of digital communication, creating an evolving and engaging icon. One that can reach out and connect with an audience, reenforcing our true identity across all types of media and out in the real world. Reflecting the state’s natural innovative instinct, this change in approach proudly leads the way on the national and international stage.
When viewed in context around the state, the symbol quietly reminds you that you are in a place like no other. You are at home. It is intended to represent the efficient delivery of services that we expect from our government, but it goes beyond that, giving back the ownership and pride in these services to the people that they truly belong to. It doesn’t prescribe any one single definition or meaning, extending well beyond politics and allowing every Tasmanian to create their own story about what it means, and how it reflects on their own Tasmanian experience.
Several key ideas from our initial visual research resurfaced in this concept, in particular the notion of reflections within landscape and the Aurora Australis phenomenon. When considering reflections, the image is never static, it is fluid and graceful. These ideas of reflection also relate closely to our ambition to create an identity that feels native. It should feel like it has originated from and remains with, the people of Tasmania. While it can be argued that as a government brand it should not necessarily represent a sense of place, being Tasmanian we understand the influence of the landscape over it’s people, and believe that for our audience representations of environment are more than just images of hills and sky.
The circularity of the symbol and its fluid edges further reinforce the idea of an island that is both outward looking, yet contained and self-sustaining. The strength of the circle imbues the symbol with a formal gravitas. The harmonious forms within subtly reflect infinite movement and create a vibrant sense of rhythm.
The Primary typeface is Founders Grotesk by New Zealand typographer Kris Sowersby. Founders Grotesk is typical of Kris’ typography in that it is human in tone but also technical and precise, these are all qualities that help to define the tone of the identity. Subtle nuances can be found throughout the typeface that are in many ways similar to those is hidden in the essence of the Tasmanian culture and people.
The colours used in the identity are vibrant, modern and aspirational. Informed by the findings of our colour poll, we carefully selected colours that we knew were evocative of a positive expression of Tasmanian wilderness. They are clean and pure without feeling earthy or old. The overlapping of forms to create new colours is a critical aspect of the symbol that represents the idea of communities, cultures and economies combining meaningfully.
Looking back on the process so far, our first creative presentation responded directly to the the rational dialogue we captured through the research phase. Of these options, the most warmly received option was the most modern, demonstrating to us the collective desire to move past literal, pictorial expressions of identity. This was a validation of our initial instinctive response, and very much helped shape the State Sphere concept.
G’day guys,
First off I think it looks really good — it’s a great mark, modern, interesting and the colours and type look fresh. congratulations, i think it’s a great concept and a noble cause. And I like it more than the drinking Tiger.
just a few comments for what they’re worth; I realise I’m coming late to this!
1. I probably missed a step in your rationale but I’d prefer it said ‘Tasmania’, rather than Tasmanian government. Just having the name of the state means that it can be the symbol for the whole place and it can stand alone in more diverse applications. ATM It looks it could be a sub-section of a bigger identity. ‘Tasmania’ + the mark seems to leave room for a bit of imagination, ‘Government’ seems to bring you back down to earth.
2. This is hard to put into words — and at the risk of being wanky! — I can’t help feeling like it could be pushed even more to make it more ‘ours’ or more unique. I imagine you could use this mark for a few different places or even for a few different organisations without much dissonance. It might be worth experimenting with the colours or the texture or the holding shape to take it away from just being land, sea and sky to being our land our sea our sky. for example thinking about reflecting the wild, untamedness of the place.
This is all IMHO and generally I think it looks good. Nice one.
Hi Guys, great job. Nice and fresh, vibrant design.
I can see where you are coming from on this as I’ve always detested the regurgitated Tourism dead dog logo.
Hi have to agree with Nick Gross in that I don’t think it goes far enough and lack a little punch.
I think the putting ‘Government’ in there is throwing the idea out of whack and should be more like Victoria – the place to be. ie Tasmania – Explore the possibilities (as it is now).
Overall though, nice job.
Just a little nit pick: I don’t like the line “Reflecting the state’s natural innovative extinct” above the banner photo. The dead dog might be extinct, but not the state!
Thanks for the feedback guys-much appreciated. On the point about adding in the word government, whilst it does make it much more formal, from a practical level, given that this brand now sits alongside “brand Tasmania” it is imperative that the government brand is clearly defined as such.
The previous Explore The Possibilities identity was designed to do both jobs, hence it excluded the word government.
The look and feel of the ’state sphere’ is liberating and reassuring after the contrived rubbish that we have been dished up in the past few years. But please stay away from the curved border at the bottom of your layouts. This has become a sausage factory trademark of Clems – dished out to anyone who requires the ‘Tassy trademark to acceptability’ and should be kept right away from. It is clichéd and meaningless. The rest of what is happening here is better than that. x
As a Tasmanian I really like all the references you have made in the mark – I relate to its story. I think the story really comes to life when its animated but feel like it could be pushed further in its static form. One of the references you talked about was reflections in the landscape and the fact that it should never feel static. I suppose that lends itself to the idea that it would never look the same twice. That you would always discover something new in it each time you saw it. If I was to push it further, that’s where I would do more exploration.
I like it, i’ve enjoyed following your process. Being from ACT i feel the pain of having a bad local branding.
Canberra is in desperate need of a rebrand. Not as much of a beautiful place as Tasmania but i believe its a stunning city and deserves a better image than what we currently have— a circle with our state emblem in it. Reeks of politics and government.
Hey, has anyone seen this? http://www.brandtasmania.com/show.php?ACT=Public&menu_code=100
I hit submit before I finished commenting but I used to work on that project and there was a lot of research done in 2009 for the Brand Tasmania logo. It’s not the government logo, but I thought you’d like to take a look at it and the project it’s associated with.