Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art merge brands
The Queensland Art Gallery has merged the brands of its two sites – the Queensland Art Gallery itself and the Gallery of Modern Art – into one.
While the Queensland Art Gallery has been at Brisbane’s South Bank for 30 years, the Gallery of Modern Art opened next door in December 2006.
Interbrand’s Sydney and Melbourne were behind the rebrand, which sees the acronyms of the QAG and GOMA galleries combined to form QAGOMA.
The new visual identity replaces the old logo that has existed since 2006:
Mike Rigby, creative director at Interbrand said in a press release: 
“Inspired by the idea of Yin and Yang, we created a strikingly simple visual and verbal system that pulls the two brands together while simultaneously celebrating their differences. By thinking of QAG and GOMA not just as different galleries, but as different personalities, we can create a fascinating brand experience that revolves around the interplay between the two.”
Jake Smallman, Interbrand Melbourne’s CD added: “The graphic device also solved the problem of having to trade-off either gallery receiving all of the attention. Even when GOMA promotes an event, QAG can be seen as connected and endorsing it. We developed clear rules to denote how each can take credit for exhibitions and frame the art they are presenting.”
The new identity will be rolled out over the next six months with QAGOMA restaurants and cafes the first to be rebranded.
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Interbrand
Thumbs down – QAGOMA……sounds like an STI…
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For a Queensland institution the new identity has a very Sydney feel. The ‘G’ brandmark looks a lot like the Sydney Cit y logo that came out in 2012 and the letter interplay between ‘QAG’ and ‘GOMA’ reminds me of the brilliant Sydney Dance Company logo. Its a lot a better than what was in place before though, and judging some of other recent rebrands of Queensland cultural organisations (Queensland Opera, QPAC, QTC, Queensland Symphony ) maybe some interstate involvement was a safe bet.
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What year is this again?
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Au contraire . . memorable and anthropomorphic sounding. Good stuff methinks.
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As Mark Twain said all this sounds like a cameleopard.
It wasn’t to me from this report whether the individual names will be retained or they have now become a combined and unpronounceable acronym. But I checked on their websites and it’s all true. They are now an unpronounceable acronym.
As it stands the identity for both organisations now seems less clear than when Interbrand started work on them, and I imagine this somewhat defeats the purpose.
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Why did they have to go all the way to Sydney and Melbourne for this? Surely there are Brisbane firms that could have come up with something as incomprehensible.
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