Designing Australia’s Future was a public awareness campaign during the 2016 Federal election run by the Australian Institute of Architects.
Its goal was to encourage members to start conversations with their local candidates, whether for the House of Representatives or the Senate, to discuss their position on various issues around Designing Australia’s Future. A collaborative effort to turn the discussion to a policy-making level. Materials included the Designing Australia’s Future booklet, fact sheets, talking points, and questions to ask.
My Role
Art Direction
Branded Environments
Brand Identity
Digital Design
Creative Strategy
Campaign Design
Graphic Design
Packaging
Print Design
Contributors
The Australian Institute of Architects
Professor Ken Maher
Context
With recent bushfires and Covid-19, fundamental changes within the Australian psyche have begun to happen. This shift sees emerging leaders, businesses, and governments looking for ways to align with and demonstrate their values around the environment, work-life balance, and community.
ISPT engaged CBRE to submit a proposal for the renewal project of 500 Bourke Street. Designing the site with content in mind and bringing the values and creative culture of ISPT across to the user was key to its success.
Our Approach
We started by engaging the client in several workshops to uncover all known problems and any available data and to identify the website's goals. Those workshops helped us develop themes, identify users of focus and any unknowns we wanted to uncover from user interviews.
We then validated those themes and findings by conducting a total of 25 one-on-one interviews that covered every user group we had identified to ensure a representative cross-section of the company’s ideal users was accounted for. Quantitative questions were asked to reflect the ‘importance’ of ISPT’s values. In contrast, qualitative questions were asked to gain a deeper insight into their perception of ISPT to inform the design message. Through this process, we were able to confirm key themes of importance to users and inform our design direction for the desired outcome.
The outcome of this research focused on environmental values that future tenants, the community and ISPT could align on.
Synthesis and Wireframe
I started wireframes based on some of the insights and data the client provided and what we had learned from the interviews. The main page focused on communicating the values of the environment, work-life balance, and community using key messaging, imagery and video content. At the same time, I worked closely with a UX copywriter to articulate clearly and embed language that would evoke a feeling of connection with future tenants.
User Testing
I again paired with the UX copywriter to prepare and facilitate moderated user testing. This testing aimed to ensure the tone of the language was clear, informative, and honest. It surprised nearly all of our participants to see a large landlord ISPT show how much they cared about a renewal of the building, ensuring it met environmental challenges and resonated with future tenants.
Outcome
Although CBRE was not appointed to manage this project, our customer research team was approached to consult on the vision with the winning agents. Our ideas and messaging were used in what we is live today for 500 Bourke Street. www.500bourkest.com.au
The local context of South Melbourne is integral to the proposal's urban design, articulation and materiality. The building is within the compliant planning envelope to be respectful to its neighbours, particularly the South Melbourne Market and the Heritage Pub.