What a difference a few months can make. We’ve seen a minority government take power in Tasmania, bringing with it an interesting set of new ideas that have influenced our thinking and process.

In response to our first creative pitch, we’ve also experienced some healthy feedback, both positive and negative, which has been invaluable. To our slight surprise, the poll results for the creative pitch have mirrored the previous poll findings, which suggested the Tasmanian Devil is a marginally more popular state symbol than the Thylacine.

More importantly, there is a genuine hunger to find a more contemporary, less pictorial expression of Tasmanian identity, as shown by the relative popularity of the partially abstract “Innovation State” concept, which experienced a winning 45% of the total votes. We received passionate and well reasoned feedback particularly from fellow designers, some of which argued that we didn’t go far enough to discover any new ideas. This is a criticism we cop on the chin, mindful that the first round of ideas were creative expressions of rational opinions, collected through the open forum.

Right now, we are putting the finishing touches on a concept which has evolved out of the Innovation State idea, inspired by everything the project has thrown up so far. It’s a solution we are proud to put our name to, and one we believe is a comprehensive response to the brief. Thanks for being a part of this process, check back soon for our latest creative pitch and your chance to shape the project.