After a short break we’ve jumped back into the project with some fresh energy, having now completed both the stage one findings and the creative brief. Sifting through all of the discussion so far, we were quite humbled by the response and are really excited by the creative potential that exists in this swirling mix of thoughts, ideas and opinions.

As with anything on our blog, we are really keen to hear your feedback so don’t be shy. We are currently gathering our thoughts and nutting out the plan of attack for the design phase, so stay tuned as things will be heating up in the coming days and weeks.

Click here to download findings document (PDF)

Click here to download creative brief (PDF)

Big thanks to Sebastian for this evocative window into his imagination. www.guerriniisland.com

Governments and branding may at first seem odd bedfellows, since governments are not-for-profit representational and administrative organisations, and branding seemingly has its origins in the commercial world. However, as branding expert Wally Olins identifies, governments were some of the first organisations to use an early form of branding several centuries ago.

Long ago, coats of arms were central to government brands. In Australia these coats of arms were typically made by engravers working in small printers in each capital city. The City of Melbourne emblem is one of the earliest coats of arms made in this way, having first been used in 1842 (top left). The ‘brand’ surrounding the coat of arms was the collective idea of one community united in a physical space – the council or State area. To foster this sense of community, or brand, the government sponsored official ceremonies and sporting events. Coats of arms are still used by many governments today, but their use has been overshadowed in many instances by newer developments in branding technology.

In the early 20th century, another developmental stage of branding began. Some companies in Europe and the United States started to consider all of the visual aspects of their company as one coordinated message. This was early corporate identity, the immediate precursor to branding as we know it today. By the 1970s, corporate identities were standard in companies throughout the world, and governments began to catch on to the management advantages of such coordinated visual communication. In the early 1980s some of the first Australian government corporate identities started to emerge, first at a local level with councils (bottom right and bottom left) and slowly moving upward to state and national governments.

In the last 10 years, some Australian governments, such as the Tasmanian State government, have slowly shifted from using government corporate identities to government brands. Corporate identities and brands look similar to one another, but the brand considers more about the government and the people it represents, and so is far more ambitious. While corporate identities are primarly for creating a systematic, cohesive communication, brands attempt to shift perception with a cohesive communication strategy. We have a perception of what the government is and does, and sometimes this is not in accordance with what is actually the case. By participating in discussions such as this one on the Rebrand Tasmania blog, you can help ensure that the perception of Tasmania that its brand portrays is honest and genuine.

Katherine Hepworth, PhD Candidate

National Institute of Design Research

Swinburne University of Technology

Firstly, how would you describe your understanding and knowledge of the island of Tasmania?

I have to admit that my first contact with Tasmania came from the Tasmanian Devil cartoon when I was a child. Then I met people from Tasmania during my travels, who taught me more about the islands.

As an international designer that is heavily involved in place branding, what does the current Tasmanian State Government brand communicate to you about our state?

www.discovertasmania.com, www.iris.tas.gov.au and www.tas.gov.au show me different things. While “Discover” represents the strength of the landscape and nature, TAS and Iris portray through their pages, a cold and neutral atmosphere, giving the feeling of an unfriendly and bureaucratic Tasmania. With respect to the logos, Discover is synthesized by a dynamic and modern symbol but if the reader is not familiar with the figure, the shape of the island, it fails to convey any meaning. In my view, this form does not effectively convey either a smile or an island. Meanwhile, the Tasmanian brand present in TAS, is friendly and nice but maybe a little outdated, failing to seduce from its graphics or setting clear attributes in the current context. This is due to it representing nature but from a graphic piece that would be more fitting for a zoo, and which consequently fails to awaken the magic force, strength or mystery of Tasmania that could be conveyed.

In conclusion, I believe that the way Tasmania is represented places the archipelago in a limited and hesitant role, which is not able to structure an image that contains and projects to the viewer the energy that a place like Tasmania has. All of this is within a particular scenario, whereby the brands of Australia and New Zealand do manage to convey great energy.

Which cities/states/nations worldwide do you believe have branded themselves particularly well and why?

We must first define what a well carried out branding project is. Second what we mean by brand, if we just mean the design of a symbol or if we are referring to the politics of image and effective communication.

Barcelona, since the Olympics, when they developed an image policy, has sustained a strong image over time through good design, good strategy and good communications. It works steadily and is open to amendments. Thus, these symbols have helped anchor concrete actions leading to direct benefits for the city, that is to say that the symbol was never dissociated from its meaning.

Another interesting case is that of Brazil, which works its brand in an integrated way involving the different areas of the nation.

Finally, I liked the work done in Germany about changing the black from its flag for the European blue. Rather than something that failed, it provoked a series of discussions that made the brand successful despite its supposed failure.

Through your PHD research, did you uncover strong connections between the ideas of identity employed in state branding and the real individual understanding of national identity? I.e. Do you think place branding is a powerful tool when used correctly?

Yes, I understand that if the brands of origin gather the best of life in common, they can help that community realize some shared positive values. To do so, these communities should look for and use selectively the symbols that bind and do not divide. Such symbols should integrate, not exclude, arouse optimism and motivate those related to it to think about the common good. 

However, for this ideal scenario, it is necessary that the story that the brand transmits, to be representative of the community. Otherwise, you run the risk of distorting reality, which can cause a boomerang effect for the job. 

In my PhD research, I argued that national identities are arbitrary constructions that are installed by their States, States which are led by hegemonic groups. These States project symbolic fiction through stories that are absorbed mainly by schoolchildren, communities and families. This, in turn, helps structure a common vision of what the Nation is. The media used by the State are, among others, textbooks, the flag, coat of arms, monuments, banknotes, stamps, propaganda, public architecture, uniforms and also the brands of origin.

Regarding the comparison with New Zealand, I would recommend Tasmania to take a look at itself. I think the most important part of this work is to be clear what the specific objectives for the brand are and in what time period. The content of this research is essential to assess any further action, because this content is measurable, strategic and can ensure that an investment made by Tasmania bears fruit. 

It is therefore important to understand that these brands are important not only for tourism, exportation or for political credibility, but for people who build day by day the present and future of the islands. The children of the island, whether they like it or not, need references about where they stand and how their society is constituted. Otherwise anomie will be left for them as the only reference.

Tasmania as a destination is often compared to NZ, who has been described as leading the way in how they brand and market their clean/green image internationally. From an international perspective how would you compare the image you have of New Zealand vs Tasmania?

New Zealand is the force of nature tamed and bounded within a geographical and thematic space, and in line with this we might recall the image they convey through the All Blacks, with all their tattoos and expressions. Tasmania appears to be nature in its purest form, i.e. it seems to be perhaps the most neglected and hidden place in the world. For a foreigner it is hard to imagine that there is a population and activities there, which, depending on the needs of Tasmania, can help you install different interpretations that pique the interest of viewers.

Do you know of any other examples where a place brand has been developed by the people, via an open online discussion?

With regard to methodology, I think you first have to see what you are looking to create from the brand. The public effect seeks to make the viewer the modifier or reinforcer of what Tasmania means, thus ensuring that their definitions and attitudes about the archipelago are consistent with the strategy set. If we accept this, the debate itself might have a positive effect that the brand, before birth, brings to its people.

Second, I believe that the greatest difficulty that a job like this has is not to achieve the design of a beautiful symbol, but to reach consensus among all stakeholders towards a shared horizon. These parties are the online communities and even business groups and the parliament, since what is being discussed is as important as what the Tasmanian model aims for the coming years.

In this regard, if the majority consensus reinforces an accepted axis of action, it will have achieved a breakthrough towards the ideal brand. This consensus can be, for example, that Tasmania aims from their brand just to attract tourists and to be represented solely by its nature or not.

Furthermore, this consensus will help designers and creatives to focus their action on a concrete objective, and that means the evaluation of their work will not be an arbitrary task.

Third, I believe the greatest resource for spreading the brand name of a place is its people. They consist of both residents who travel the world using a T-shirt with the logo of their home, and entrepreneurs that take the brand as their own and place it spontaneously in their advertising and products. This suggests that if the mark is the result of social and political consensus within Tasmania, it will have a greater chance of being adopted by its entire people. I’ve had very rewarding experiences with some projects that I used with this approach and recommend it.

Do you have any other thoughts/comments/ideas about this crowd-sourcing experiment we are conducting?

I would tell you my vision on the subject: a brand of origin tells a story. It is a story that is simply a myth told to those who hear it about what will happen if they are linked with the place that the brand represents. In this way, that story / brand is a promise of results, emotions, experiences and attitudes that will be found in that place. So what the design of these brands does is to tell a good story. This can be achieved only from an abstract gesture that could be complemented by good communication or by an illustrative representation of alleged facts. In this sense, there is no aesthetic determinism, but there is a demand that the message of the brand be understandable, straightforward and clear. Above all these things, it must convey the sense of place and the soul of its people. This will mean that the brand tells a unique story that will endure over time and that will charm from its authenticity.

Sebastian Guerrini is a Designer in Visual Communication (Argentina), a graduate in Communication Technologies (Netherlands) and Doctor of Philosophy in Communication and Image Studies at the University of Kent (England).

His area of speciality is the analysis and design of Institutional Communication. He has carried out image and identity design in Latin America, United States, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, England, Switzerland, Germany and China. He has also developed projects for Amnesty International, UNICEF, UNESCO, CLACSO and the United Nations, among others. In 2008 he won the international competition to design the image of the Organic World Foundation (Bonn, Germany) and in 2009 the competition for the design of the slogan and logo for the Argentine Pavilion in the Frankfurt Book Fair, for which Argentina will be the host country in 2010.

Author of the graphical version of the Argentine National Emblem, Sebastian also designed the brand of CONICET, the image of the Museum of Natural Sciences of Argentina and the visual identity of the nation’s Presidency, Ministries and Secretaries of State. Recently, the logo he designed for FIBA (the International Theater Festival of Buenos Aires) colourfully adorned the streets of Buenos Aires.

Aside from his studio www.guerriniisland.com , you can read a collection of his thoughts on design and identity at www.sebastianguerrini.com and www.designingnationality.com.

What sort of Tasmania do you want to leave your grandchildren?
A State that is proud of its heritage, its environment and its people. One that promotes opportunity and respects an individual’s right to achieve their own potential, without discrimination. Importantly, I would like to see a Tasmania that is tolerant but one that respects the law and the people’s right to change it through their elected representatives.

What does the Tasmanian Tiger symbol mean to you?
It symbolises some of our heritage and is recognisable as being distinctly Tasmanian. I believe it is important that we have a symbol that is synonymous with Tasmania and the Tasmanian Tiger would seem to qualify in that regard.

What would say are the key values that Tasmanians share?
I think most Tasmanians would share the belief in the right to live in a ‘free’ society (freedom of speech, choice, religion etc) with democratic values, and have a respect for humanity. We are certainly a vocal community with a strong belief in expressing our views and opinions.

As a symbol of our identity that we all see everyday, what do you think our state government branding should make us feel?
The symbol should make us feel uniquely Tasmanian – a symbol that can only be ‘Tasmanian’.

http://www.elisearcher.com

When it comes to legendary Tasmanians, there is probably no bigger name than world champion axemen David Foster OAM. We were lucky enough to have a chat with the great man and he didn’t disappoint, giving it to us straight on what being Tasmanian means to him.

What would you say is the heart and soul of Tasmania?

It’s the people. Every time I talk to someone from the mainland, they can’t believe how much time people have for each other here. You’ll be driving up the road and people will give you a wave, or they’ll stop in the middle of the road and they’ll say g’day.

How much value do you place on the Tassie Tiger as a symbol of what it means to be Tasmanian?

I think the Tassie Tiger and also the Tassie Devil are very important. When I went to America I was amazed that who ever I spoke to, once they found out I was from Tassie, they just wanted to know more about the Tassie Devil. I think the Tassie Devil and the Tassie Tiger are two best-known Tasmanians, all over the world.

One idea that has already come up is that we should throw our support behind the Tassie Devil by making it our new state symbol, replacing the current Tassie Tiger logo.  Is that something you would support?

Yes I would absolutely. One of the last things I would want in my lifetime, is be able to say I saw the last Tassie Devil die in a bloody zoo somewhere. I remember the last Tiger that died in a Zoo in Hobart a long time ago and that was a tragedy.

Are there any stereotypes of Tasmania that you think we need to move on from?

Well I actually love the whole two-headed Tasmania bit, I really do. I suggested years ago we should’ve had a competition here. Come to Tasmania and if you can find a two-headed Tasmanian, you’ll win a one million dollar reward. I think we do cop it, but I think we need to be proud of our heritage.

Do you think much of the traditional north/south rivalry we have in Tasmania?

I actually think it’s good that we’ve got that. We’re very proud us little bloody Tasmanians. I know people that live in Launceston and for them, they’ve never traveled and they think Launceston is the best place to be, which I think is great. There are people that have grown up in Queenstown who have gone somewhere else, then they go back there to retire and live and that is an amazing thing too, because people here just love where they live. So you can understand why you are going be protective of your place. It’s your kingdom. But, when you get a statewide fundraiser, the whole of Tasmania gets together which is fantastic.

What would say are the values that Tasmanians have that make us different?

I’ve heard people say Tassie is 30 years behind the mainland. To me, that is a compliment, because the world has gone too far. There are people here that still know their neighbours and they still talk to their neighbours. You go to those big cities like Sydney and people don’t want to talk to you.

I don’t think we need to change anything, because I think we’ve got it all here. I honestly believe we are the envy of the world. I tell people that god made the earth and there was a little bit left over, so then he made Tassie.

Cheers to that!

How would you define the heart and soul of Tasmania?

The fundamental characteristic of the Tasmanian experience is that whatever our island and its people are, we are also, and just as extremely, the exact opposite.

In the one vista we see sublime beauty and sickening ugliness. In the one historical or political episode we witness cowardice, atrocity, bravery and sacrifice. In the same family, grey, anxious conformity and eccentric creative brilliance lie side by side. In so many Tasmanian minds obstinate amnesia exists alongside centuries-long memory. From so many Tasmanian hearts emerge both deep prejudice and saintly generosity of spirit.

Our best poets and novelists are inspired by, and sometimes succeed in portraying, these contradictions. But I fear it is almost impossible for a symbol, a logo or a brand to do it.

The one exception to this is the Thylacine. Its extinction represents us at our worst. But honouring the Thylacine also represents the hope that we can change, and truly value the land and ourselves. That is why I consider it a more than appropriate symbol of Tasmania.

What value do you place on the Tasmanian Tiger as an iconic symbol for Tasmania?

The Thylacine may have been driven from our woodlands, but it has thrived in our collective imagination. The stories my grandparents told about their encounters with tigers still excite and astound me. This inheritance makes my pause whenever I walk passed the old film of the last captive Thylacine on continuous loop in the museum. It brings a wry smile to my face when I turn the page to a Cascade beer ad featuring a Thylacine lapping at a ferny Hobart Rivulet (where, in reality, there’s a mess of blackberries in front of my house in South Hobart). It brings a lump to my throat when I throw carrots to the pademelons in my backyard and they scamper, not from me, but from the Thylacines whose ecological footprint is still evident in their skittishness. So too, when I see a Thylacine emerging from or retreating into the grass at the top of a government document, I’m struck by the ironies and the ambiguities, and I groan, or I ponder, depending on the moment (and the document).

All this is evidence of the way the Thylacine has become a dream animal like a unicorn or a griffin. Like them it has become an idea, able to represent much more than a living breathing, animal such as a devil (as wonderful as these little creatures are). Tasmania, too, is best understood as a dream, where the unlikely is the norm and the impossible unremarkable. For this reason, I can think of no better animal to represent our strange island character than one that doesn’t exist.

To remove the Thylacine would be to retreat from the depths of despair and heights of hope that make up Tasmanian experience. It would be to retreat from an unfillable and aching absence its extinction has left, but also from a the rich lore and myth the Thylacine bequeathed. In short, it would be to retreat from the contradictions that make us who we are.

If you had a chance to replace the current Government logo with a different symbol, what would it be?

My loyalty to the Thylacine does not mean I want to retain the logo we have now. My preferred design would be a Thylacine that somehow floats about us all, as if judging and redeeming us. For there is no society that requires judgement and redemption more than ours, and there is no animal in a better position to do this than the Thylacine.

www.rodneycroome.id.au

What value do you place on the Tasmanian Tiger as an iconic symbol for Tasmania?

A reasonable amount of value.  I suppose in the scheme of things, it is probably the best symbol, although it is primarily the symbol which Launceston city uses. Launceston City was the first to adopt the tiger; perhaps the State should, indeed, look for an alternative.

If you had a chance to replace the current Government logo with a different symbol, what would it be?

We would need something that truly reflects Tasmania as a whole.  The State is, as you know, very regionlised, so an animal like the tiger is very apt, even though it is most probably extinct in Tasmania. If it does still exist, I believe in the Gippsland area of Victoria, where there are twice as many sightings reported than there are in Tasmania. Perhaps the Tasmanian devil should be adopted in lieu of the tiger, particularly as it is now known world-wide through overseas entertainment exposure. Flowers are a bit anaemic and any building such as the casino (although well known) makes it very regionalised and who would want to publicly endorse gambling, even though the State Government now depends upon Federal Hotels for 12 per cent of its revenue. One would not want an image of Port Arthur (over done), but something that is instantly recognisable such as the devil, unpleasant creature as it is.  At least it is purely Tasmanian.

How would you define the heart and soul of Tasmania?

I think it is being lost because of the influence of outside culture and commercialisation. The heart and soul of Tasmanian, in my opinion, is our life style; that is what attracts people here as visitors and settlers.  However, too many mainlanders come here and say, “nice place – let’s change it!” and we end up being a replica of Sydney or Melbourne.  When our life style and particularly attitude is criticised by outsiders, I retort and ask, ‘well why come and live here?’  The fact of the matter is, they come because we have a unique style of living, which is in danger of being lost. It is more than history, which we have an abundance of, but it is how we live. Perhaps we are indeed a little slower than elsewhere, but isn’t that the attraction?  Dare to be different; but, even though the marketers capitalise on our ‘difference’, they push sameness in building massive hotels, ugly housing developments such as inner town houses, and manufactured tourist attractions, which are over priced to the extent locals are barred from entry. Port Arthur is one example.  Who gave the authority for those in control to put a fence around Port Arthur then have the audacity to say, “now pay to enter your own heritage site!”  Why bring in a Sydneysider, (Barry Jones) to supervise our own heritage?  What would he know just because he is an ex quiz show contestant!

Therefore our attraction is our life style which should be guarded, protected and promoted.  The casualness, the beauty of our environment and the protection of our history which should not to be promoted as another Disney Land like Port Arthur. What was once Tasmania is rapidly going, because of greed and a quest for power.  Our State Government, (shockingly led for decades) is now just a rubber stamp for Canberra. It is an administrative centre.  We should be far more assertive as Tasmanians, demand State Rights, be more independent in our thought and vision, but with pathetic leadership the trip to be an extended part of Victoria and submissive to what Canberra says will continue. Tasmanian industries have been destroyed (like much of the western world because of globalisation) and our uniqueness is fast diminishing.  The Tasmania I grew up in, no longer exists.

Do you have other thoughts on the rebranding project?

A few years ago, the licence plates for vehicles carried the Tasmanian Lion badge which was classy and uniquely Tasmanian.  Now, we have the tiger. Perhaps we should just keep what we have, instead of changing regularly.  One gets used to something, then suddenly there’s a change and often not for the better.

Reg. A. Watson.

Tasmanian independent author and historian.

www.regwatson.com

Goethe has the best theory about colour; he also has the most beautiful handwriting.  The palette for ‘explore the possibilities,’ black/ white/ peuce/ cobalt’ is unforgivable, as is the fact that it passed by the eye of the designer, then by a phalanx of paid official discriminators.  I accept that it’s going for a native grass/ Southern ocean two part harmony, which is at least earnest, but these two things are supported by billions of other colours and are themselves rarely the same colour twice on a given day, that’s why we symbolise, that’s why we love the red tailed black cockatoo.

One of the suggestions of the ‘tiger peeking through the grass’ is that what is good and unique about Tasmania might, in our fantasies, survive despite the measures of expedience always brought to bear by our potato headed public officials, and their accession to the interests of greed (those freckly little pharoahs smoking in a boardroom somewhere in Launceston).

History, when played back on the reel to reel, is speeded up and garbled; we only see the heat of the main engagements, and when the field is cleared, the toll and consequences.  What would happen if, in isolation, as an experiment, you populated a remote paradisiacal island, having already a long established indigenous population, with the congenital criminal classes of a whole civilisation and some Irish rebel singers.  Who would rise to the top as a ruling elite after two hundred years, and what would be their expertise?  The traditional industries in Tasmania that are so precious to governmental rhetoric and philosophy, are industries of pure exploitation.  How do you represent on a twenty cent piece Tasmania the beautiful and Tasmania the firebombed?

You’d have to keep the thylacine, because it works like a tiger on our Eurasian minds; beautiful, only partly understood and destructive if not treated respectfully.

I agree with Southsouthwest Admin that the importance of the struggle for symbolic territory should never be underestimated.  If the branding is compelling, the nature of the product will change because people will be led on, or roused.  If you were rebranding your noble family (The Van Diemen- Maynards’s) and you knew that a branch of the family were out every day gutting the place, hacking up the estate, you’d be in a tricky position.  Maybe that’s a selling point: we’ve got it all, the best and the worst people in the world.

Myth is powerful because it treats with the intellect at its source of molten collusion with the emotional and the bodily, less with refined products of the self-fancying rational mind.  Where these products seem abstract, as in shreds of a story or a little myth about a place or a track or a boat, they might be merely units waiting for a chain of greater meaning; but this is precisely where myth puts its maggots and breeds, multiplies, pulses.  A red blundstone walking boot unused for ten years in the shed is as much a mythical object as an eighty eight year old row-boat at Franklin is related to the Stuffed Thylacine in the Hobart Museum & the bit of jewellery you lost at Eddystone point.

There are scenes in your personal history that bleed meaning, that you participate in innocently, but become the archetype of some experience that you will try to recapture for the rest of your life: the science of nostalgia is part of mythification.  Remember the longest day of the year, still some light at 11 at Coles Bay, that Zeehan exists as a pub in a bubble of permanent fog, that lime milkshakes are made with cordial in Queenstown, UFO traffic in the midlands, statues of English Kings astride horses with bins on their heads, Tasmania’s answer to revolution. Most public shared myths in Tasmania are harrowing; Alex. Pierce, Port Arthur, The Black Line, Wybalena, Lake Pedder.  Anyone fancy working in an Osmiridium miner’s camp on the West Coast in 1900?  Anyone interested in hauntology should go to Tasmania.  People are interested in the macabre, in places where things happened,  and this scenic gothic is rightly exploited.  The good myths of Tasmania are mostly personal, or are about an ecstatic isolation: an unpopulated beach, ‘wilderness,’ a trip to seclusion with friends.

Music plays the same nervous system; images are embossed like Queenie’s head on a coin, but in the mind they are not static.  How do they move?  How are they recollected?   Having a central stock of images- branding- works best if it is available for customisation by the people for whom it is intended.  If you see wonky home-made copies, it has worked.  People loved the insignia and heraldry of Royal families and footy teams, they love less the signatures of bureaucracy.

I don’t at all mind that this might be partisan or bi-polar; get a Tasmanian away from home skedaddled on whiskey, and you’ll get either ‘it’s the greatest most beautiful place in the world, best people, crayfish, fungi, tall gums…’ or you’ll get ‘it’s a place that’s uncannily determined to destroy itself, it’s haunted to buggery, three quarters is already gone to chip and hydro, it’s  heartbreaking…’. Or you’ll get both at once.  This zebrafication, this patterning of the positive and negative, is what most suits Tasmania and its contradictions, and because of the sexiness of stripes I suspect the Thylacine, though extinct, has become immortal.

I have generally regarded the idea of branding or “the brand” with ambivalence. I guess because branding, in my mind, can be closely associated with some of the worst aspects of high capitalism. So, over the last few days, as I’ve been thinking about Tasmania’s current branding, a great deal of my time has been spent thinking about what a brand actually is. What is it that a brand communicates? Should it just sell something? How do brands actually work? No doubt these are fairly obvious considerations for a designer but for the layperson brands tend to be meaningless, in the most insidious possible way. By this I mean that they have a dangerous self-evidence about them and most of us either overlook or choose to ignore them and yet we are persuaded by and interact with them at almost every point in our modern, urban lives.

Branding, and the closely related logo, at its best operates like a visual lexicon, forming part of the whole visual weave of our social world; small symbols that give it colour and shape and, at some level, meaning. For me, the best brands are those that are visually simple and yet work like symbolic gestures: the Supreme coffee brand, or Melbourne’s new big M (not without controversy, but I believe the kind of brand that will be readily incorporated into the visual weave of the city).

And so I come to Tasmania’s current brand and its use of the tragically symbolic Tasmanian tiger. A brand that, as some have already noted, is firmly rooted in the past (unless of course you are convinced, like my dad, that the Tasmanian Tiger still exists). I think a brand should incorporate a certain optimism, a way forward into the future. It is important that Tasmania’s brand go some way in reflecting its dynamic creative culture, its exquisite environment as well as its present indigenous culture. I also think it is important that any future Tasmania rebrand incorporate some notion of Tasmania’s urban centres. I do not think that branding should ever play into the hands of visual cliché (two of the most obvious symbols used to represent Tasmania being the tiger and its triangular shape). These are fairly broad and grand hopes but Tasmania’s future branding should capture in a single, brief, visual moment a certain clarity, uniqueness and optimism.

Born and bred on Flinders Island in Bass Strait, Brita Frost is a Melbourne based design writer and critic with a background in anthropology. She writes and edits a blog, Suite 7 for the Australian Graphic Design Association.

I remember the 90s jingle ‘you can make it in Tasmania’… one assumed those responsible ‘doth protest too much’ and tended to lean towards the opposite. We naturally distrust branding – the attempt to create an image for an entity. To bring something or someone back into the world anew, to take an ‘existing’ and move it towards a ‘preferred’, to affect a perceptual shift through the suspension of disbelief.

The question of branding is a question of identity and asks that difficult question ‘who are you?’. A question the collective consciousness of Tasmania might find somewhat tricky to answer, perhaps slightly harder than the ‘re-branding’ alternative of ‘who do you want to be?’. Perhaps ‘who do you wish to be seen to be’ is more apt for a mark destined to be pointed largely towards outsiders; mainlanders, tourists; the Other.

If we think about who or what Tassie ‘wishes to be seen to be’ we recognise the search for identity of the juvenile; ‘trying on’ various outfits, fads and friends, searching for a ‘look’ that makes sense. We find this sort of thing endearing in a 14 year old, but after 150 years with the Tassie moniker? Surely she’s got an identity by now? Shouldn’t she be a comfortable old dog, happy in her skin, willing to stand aside and watch the shenanigans of the young things. But perhaps not, perhaps there’s a reconciliation with past events that still requires some attention.

Folk often hold up ‘I (heart) NY’ as the perfect brand, seemingly timeless, instantly recognisable, worn willingly by thousands of people in every part of the world. The brand equity of that city seems unshakeable and in some way ‘natural’, of course people love it, we all love it, it seems like a trustworthy old dog, happy in its flea-bitten old self. Yet this mark is the result of a ‘re-brand’. When Milton Glaser designed it in ‘77 (see here), he says NYC was full of dog shit, afterwards they turned a corner (brought in a $100 fine) and started to take some pride in the place.

I love Tasmania.

All the best, Neal.

If a brand is meant to generate a recognisable twitch then perhaps the Tassie Tiger is the thing, however the formal qualities of the current design are out of synch with our aspirations and our physical and emotional state now.

So what would you see as our iconic image?
Is it our shape – the map of Tassie?
Is it our 2 headed legacy and mythology?
Is it our big trees?
Our clean water?
Our wildness?

For what it’s worth ‘Tasmania explore the possibilities’ is more painful than the tiger logo.
Don’t you just ‘love this place?

http://johnvella.com.au