When approaching any identity or branding project, it is important to conduct a complete review of the current brand footprint. This audit looks at all aspects of the brands communication strategy and evaluates effectiveness, strengths, weaknesses, and potential for improvement. A crucial aspect of this journey is also to understand the visual landscape that the brand inhabits.

As seen above, the local landscape is made up of a wide range of other brands or at the smaller end, logo’s. These may be direct competitors, affiliates or sub brands, or a brand that the primary audience is most likely to be aware of, or may become aware of over time.

Beyond this immediate space, it also important to research brands both nationally and internationally, as well as across a broad spectrum of other non-related industries. For example, how does New Zealand or the Toyota Prius articulate their clean green image? What can we learn from this?

Given the proliferation of branding in recent times, this process is likely to dredge up any number of similarities that will require serious consideration. While it is true that sometimes it is difficult to avoid similarities when developing iconic easily recognisable symbolism, it is equally true that each brand should always endeavour to stand out from the crowd and establish it’s own unique voice.

After only a few hours spent looking back through the visual landscape of Tasmanian branding over recent times, it is hard to define exactly how any of these examples manage to clearly stand out from one another. How many of these would you recall the subtleties of over time, beyond maybe “It was green and had a devil poking it’s head out”?

We return to a question that seems to have been running through many of the posts and comments so far, is the devil, the tiger or the shape of the state iconic enough or original enough? Is it acceptable for the state government to share symbolism with the states biggest brewery, the council of the second biggest city, Cricket Tasmania, Athletics Tasmania, and many others? If all aspects of the brand visuals should reflect the brand values then does the state government share values with all of the aforementioned? Shouldn’t our state brand be leading the way, rather than just averaging out everything within it?

While it’s questionable as to whether or not the Thylacine is extinct in the wild, there’s no doubting it’s reaching plague proportions in the visual landscape.