Australia’s new wattle logo is a design, storytelling and timing failure
Last week, Australia’s new logo was revealed: a golden wattle flower that many were quick to point out bears an uncanny resemblance to COVID-19. As Ash Ivory argues, it wasn’t just a design failure, but also a failure to communicate the story behind the logo, and time its launch correctly.
Unless your NBN has been playing up, you’ll have seen Australia’s new logo: a golden wattle to accompany the beloved ‘Australian Made’ kangaroo logo. It would be easy to point out the COVID-19 likeness, as many have, or that gold foiling is extremely difficult and costly to reproduce on packaging.
Both of these points are valid and concerning. But there are even bigger issues: brand consistency, a failure to communicate the rebrand’s purpose, and the timing of the launch.
The new ‘nation brand’
I had no idea it was wattle. Looked like a Christmas card design. Maybe gum leaves would have been more suitable?
agree it is something that my mum would have put on the Christmas table back in the 80s.
It could be made into a 10 pack of Christmas Cards from the cheapie shop for $1.50.
Bigger Question should be why did the hell it cost 10 million dollars?..
It’s a good point Sean, I think this is partly where the storytelling element comes into play. 10 million is still a lot to explain though.
Two years to come up with a logo like NBN’s. Truth is stranger than fiction.
Yep. I immediately thought of the NBN logo when I saw this. Yet another strike against it. Sigh.
I’m sorry, but I cannot see how this badly thought out design logo cost $10m and it leaves me wondering just how that money was absorbed and to whom it was distributed. Maybe freedom of information can release the cost-report? It reminds me of the utter failure of the Queensland Commonwealth Games ‘Lights’ on the M1 motorway at Yatala that was designed by a New York company and overseen by a local committee of blindfolded individuals. Maybe it is about time companies like Clemenger BBDO should look for creative thinkers to employ, which I’m sure in this present climate there a many looking for a job. Oh, and the comment in this article (To take some heat off the agency, Clemenger BBDO, the new logo was in the works since 2018) REALLY!! Two years WOW.
Hhmmm,
This was last weeks news? It should be treated as last weeks news as well. The logo is a complete miss-lead of the current times. The people that should be most held accountable are the Judging Panel. How could they get this so wrong? How does Alan Joyce seriously consider this to be the right logo / brand for Australia?
I agree with this being a big topic last week, so I tried to focus less on pulling the design apart and think more about how they could have taken people on the journey of the design process and picked their timings better. It might have meant less criticism in the end.
A good example of why you dont get an ad agency to do a branding project.
Exactly – yet you see it so often.. It’s all too common for brands to look for a skillset they think they want, when they really need something else.
And more often than not, what they need is a better strategy.
What did everyone expect when it is an ADVERTISING agency creating the brand. You don’t see brand agencies touching advertising briefs…
Surely Scotty from Marketing is behind this shambles?
What a complete waste of time and OUR MONEY. What’s more an AUSTRALIAN MADE logo being developed by Clemenger BBDO, an INTERNATIONALLY MAJORITY OWNED company.
Bucking the trend here, but i quite like it. Agreed $10 million is a bit rich, but the design is lovely.
I think part of their challenge will be how they roll this out, so many stakeholders, so many places for the logo. I’m speculating a little but I feel the brand in practice might come unstuck. It would be worth trying to see how it works in a brand system to see if they can overcome some of those challenges.
What was actually wrong with the Original Brand to warrant a Covid Christmas Card display?
Unbelievable!
Apparently, this new logo cost 10 million. The real failure by the agency was not spending some of that cash to explain it. They left it up to the shock jocks to tear it to pieces on radio and socials. It may very well be well researched and you would expect the agency to justify its costings.
If we who do branding cannot be convinced, then how do you convince Kevin on the Internet? Sadly, it does not pass the pub test and it might have if they had executed a release strategy to show the value.
I reckon I could have done better and my charge would have been around $9.99million less.
Yawn. If we have to have a 1,000-word essay a logo explaining its merits, it is not a logo. it is modern art.
Someone said ‘you beauty’ 10mill!!
Anything is better than a kangaroo in a triangle.
Lets do a dot painting shaped like a wattle to keep the indigenous critics happy & stick the old AU to keep it modern.
No story
No inspiration
Just looks different ‘new is good’
Thanks for the 10mill.
I prefer this wattle any day http://www.goldenwattleflag.com
I can’t believe we didn’t use this. what a wonderful expression/
So while the country was burning then in lockdown because of a world wide pandemic the government decided that would be a good time to release a new logo. Seriously!!!
Wattle? Doesn’t look like wattle at all. More like a disco ball.
How can a logo be worth more than 10 times the value of paintings by famous Australian artists such as Sir Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts?
What is the breakdown of where the $10M went?
How much did the (much better) kangaroo/boomerangs logo cost?
How much did the Aboriginal flag by Harold Thomas coxt?
Yes, agree totally. Good points made. How to justify $10M is absolutely mind-boggling.
A huge part of the cost would have been the time creating multiple logo options, feedback rounds etc.
Looking at one logo and saying it cost x dollars is not recognising the vast amount of work that would have gone into developing probably hundreds of options and exploring how they would work in various scenarios, not to mention running focus groups, and months of working through stakeholder presentations.
That said, it’s a pretty crap logo (I’d hate to see it in CMYK or RGB) and the typography is cheap and lazy.
A bit of a conflict of interest for Alan Joyce. He would have lobbied hard for anything but the kangaroo, as his business has monopolised and hijacked our kangaroo. This why we got this junk.
Andrew Forrest as a miner probably lent towards the gold leaf colour which I actually like it is more expensive but it makes it jump. Andrew may have also liked the double meaning of Au – Element Gold. Sadly the font and its border is just horrible, it looks like a child’s homework, it make me wince.
Whether we like it or not the kangaroo is one icon where anywhere in the world any kindergarten child to adult would identify with Australia.
There is probably more money to be made by communicating this incoherent gold symbol concept to the world.
The new design is not conceptually without merit, however, as a communication device that trades on internationally recognized symbolism, it falls flat on its face. Golden Wattle is not widely known within Australia let alone outside. Technically its application across various print and electronic media will be a challenge. I have a background in design and communication and speak from extensive experience. I’ve long been a fan of the green and gold kangaroo, it has stood the test of time and gained considerable brand recognition in and outside Australia. Hopefully, there’s enough herd immunity to the new design, and it is dropped. Is the $10m fee a joke?