Project Overview
Since its inception, NAB's learning center, The Academy, has been built around creating transformational journeys for its staff. While they enjoyed a successful rebrand in 2009, NAB felt it was time for The Academy itself to go through its own transformational journey, refreshing the brand to further enhance its standing within the broader NAB business.
With this in mind a new visual language was developed for 2014, keeping the brand up to date, with a new illustrative style and guidelines for all brand communications it created.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Designer - Agus Wijaya; Executive Creative Director - Simon Wright; Creative Director - Martin Hopkins; Account Manager - Aimee Crowley; Senior Account Manager - Emily Han; XXVI
Project Brief
The original brief from the client in 2009 was to break away from the traditional to create a brand that was less central to the corporate culture and more aspirational. The brief for 2014 was to redefine what this means for today.
Over time the brand had lost momentum and gravitas and the time had come where we needed to bring the brand back to life with a fresh look and feel. Key to the brand was that it must retain the strong black white and red elements that the parent brand uses, harnessing existing brand recognition from NAB. However there was also a freedom for The Academy to think outside the box and be more unexpected and thought provoking. Communication was to be likened to having an intelligent conversation with a peer. Most importantly, linking back to the idea of transformational journeys, the brand needed to remain positive at all times.
Project Innovation/Need
The reinvigoration of the brand needed to be done in a way that was both clean and modern but also maintained the level of sophistication and impact that the brand had been well known for 5 years ago.
A new illustrative style and communication guidelines were developed for The Academy. These guidelines were diverse in there ability to allow the creation of simple visuals through to more inspirational complex applications. Importantly they helped to further reinforce the idea of the unexpected by allowing the flexibility creating a fresh sense of variety, that still keep everything very much ‘on brand’.
Design Challenge
The design challenge was to create a new sense of energy for all communications, that both revived the reception that the early rebrand had received in the past, but that also would make audiences rethink what they thought they already knew about The Academy. NAB's presence needed to be evident within the brand, ensuring that their commitment and investment into employees and the exploration of there potential was not overlooked.
All of this need to be done with the same level of cleverness and the same spirit that provokes a smile or acknowledgement which had been so successful for the previous iteration of the brand.
Effectiveness
While the rebrand in 2009 lead to increased interest in the brand internally and widespread acclaim, the reinvigoration of the brand has further helped to raise the profile of The Academy within NAB. The new direction has aided in solidifying how the brand communicates, making its message easier to understand, while also creating a brand that is thought provoking and unexpected at the same time.
Graphic Design - Identity and Branding
This award celebrates creative and innovative design in the traditional or digital visual representation of ideas and messages. Consideration given to clarity of communication and the matching information style to audience.
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