Within the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) lies one of Australia’s leading sustainability consultancies, the Institute of Sustainable Futures (ISF). They compete with the biggest global consultants but deliver a far more rigorous and bespoke approach that balances academic rigour with real-world action. To combat the perception that ISF was merely a research institute, our challenge was to develop a unique brand identity that would sit comfortably within UTS’s masterbrand.
As ISF was developed by academics, and relied heavily on their combined expertise as well as the prominence of UTS as a university, it lacked the perspective of a rigorous brand strategy. This was essential to help differentiate ISF from the Big 4 of consulting: BCG, KPMG, EY and Deloitte. We positioned ISF as ‘the definition of taking action’ due to its proven track record of real-world impact over decades of projects — as well as the insight that despite the significant resources of the Big 4, their solutions don’t always equate to positive action.
One of the primary applications for the branding was creating templates for the numerous reports that IFS prepares for clients. These needed to portray the vibrancy of the brand’s ambition for positive change, while also being easy to read and easy to apply to existing documents. We created a variety of Microsoft Office and Canva templates that strictly adhered to the new brand, while being simple for academics to use without design support.
The new visual identity needed to sit comfortably within the UTS masterbrand, most importantly with the UTS font and signature blue brand colour. So we developed a green identity for IFS that worked seamlessly with UTS Blue, with brand shapes that leveraged the existing UTS logo and typeface shapes.
We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land upon which we create, the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.
Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.