Since 1987, the SEGD Global Design Awards have set the standard of excellence for experiential graphic design worldwide; honouring and recognising design work that connects people to place by providing direction, content, and compelling experiences in public spaces.

Studio Ongarato was awarded the Honor Award, the SEGD’s highest award for its work on Arup Melbourne’s Workplace in the Wayfinding category and a Merit Award for Jackalope in the Placemaking & Identity category.

Ronnen Goren, Studio Ongarato co-founder and strategy director, says the SEGD Global Design Awards are a fitting recognition of the studio’s industry-leading approach to visual identity and immersive design.

“For twenty-five years we have championed brand storytelling in design and understood the value of difference, the power of taste and the importance of beauty. These elements have underpinned our multi-layered design work on Arup Melbourne and Jackalope and it is wonderful to have it internationally recognised, “Goren said.

Studio Ongarato’s comprehensive signage and environmental graphics system for the Melbourne headquarters of globally respected engineering firm Arup took out the top Honor Award for the Wayfinding category, one of only nine Honour awards, with one judge commenting, "I’d work there just so I could experience this wayfinding system."

Designed to complement Arup’s corporate values of honesty, integrity and ingenuity, the wayfinding system was based on the concept "Testing Grounds" and reflect notions of investigation, discovery, innovation and the aspiration to put "Arup on Show."

Commenting on the Arup Melbourne workplace, the judges said, "Defining perfect restraint in both materiality and execution this system perfectly integrates into the surrounding environment while adding an uncomplicated element of illumination and touch of warmth to the environment."

The Merit Award in the Placemaking & Identity category for luxury Australian hotel Jackalope, one of only 22 awarded across the seven award categories, recognised the avant-garde integration of environment and brand experience which references its vineyard location with a narrative-led approach based on the theme of alchemy.

"I appreciate the rich layering and variety of storytelling happening between the environment and all guest touch-points; the materiality and finishes were thoughtfully executed without unnecessary adornment. All this, accomplished with a playful, unexpected and disruptive sense of humor that evokes an energetic and engaging personality," noted one of the SEGD judges.

The studio’s work for Jackalope spanned brand identity and collateral, conceptual site narrative and experiential design, art curation and commissioning, environmental graphics and styling, lighting design, landscape installation design, and wayfinding strategy and signage.

Judges commented that Studio Ongarato had created "A seamlessly coordinated art, branding and signage program oozing moodiness.”

Project Collaborators

Jackalope
Architects and Interior Design: Carr Design, Melbourne
Landscape Design: Taylor Culity Lethlean, Melbourne
Artists: Emily Floyd, Andrew Hazewinkel, Rolf Sachs, and Kate Robertson
Interior and exterior photography: Mark Roper and Sharyn Cairns

Arup Melbourne
Architects and Interior Design: Hassell
Interior photography: Ben Hoskings

The Powerhouse Precinct is the largest cultural infrastructure project currently being undertaken in Australia. It will transform and renew one of Australia’s oldest and most important cultural institutions, setting an international benchmark in cultural precinct design.

Founded in 1879, the Powerhouse Museum is a major collection of 500,000 objects relating to science and industry. The organisation has been based in Sydney’s Ultimo district since 1988 and is part of New South Wales’s larger Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS). The competition - focused on a 24-hour museum - will showcase the internationally-significant MAAS collection and support a dynamic program of changing exhibitions.

The finalists were selected by a Shortlisting Panel led by Jury Chair, Naomi Milgrom AO and including competition jury members Kim Crestani, City Architect, City of Parramatta Council; David Gianotten, Managing Partner – Architect, OMA; Lisa Havilah, Chief Executive, MAAS; Wendy Lewin FRAIA, Principal, Wendy Lewin Architect; and David Riches, Head of Projects, Infrastructure NSW.

The finalists will have three months to develop concept designs, which will be shown to the public in a physical exhibition and online gallery before the international jury meets to decide the winning design.

The word ‘brand’ is arguably one of the most overused words today. It is applied across all sorts of platforms but also often reduced to a logo. What does it mean to you and to your company?

We’ve always taken a holistic approach to brand. It’s everything that a customer sees, feels, thinks about or interacts with in context of a product or service. For us, successful branding makes something more than what it is or provides. We aim to make a memorable or emotional connection. A genuine connection to a brand can only be made if the story and its promise is authentic. We were fortunate in this regard working with AGSA.

We started the process of uncovering an insightful truth to anchor the rebrand. It was an enormously engaging and stimulating process, partly because of the passionate team and their infectious energy, because of their high level of intellectual engagement as well as their clarity of vision. AGSAs intimate understanding of its clientele, established via sophisticated visitor feedback loops, made our job a pleasure and privilege. They are a truly inspired team and an aspired gallery that already had a unified vision which made our job a lot easier.

One of the processes you used in working with the Gallery involved creating identities/characteristics to speak to the Gallery’s identity and ambitions. Can you tell us more about these?

There are many forces that come into play in creating an identity. To illustrate, the way that AGSA was curating exhibitions was identified as a key point of differentiation and we felt, that although it was a clearly defined practice within the gallery, it wasn’t communicated in the gallery’s brand positioning. Instead of curating in a conventional, didactic or categorical way in style or time period, AGSA was distinctive in combining old and new in a much less linear way. This practice mirrors a more indigenous concept of time, where old and new are both “now”’.

We identified additional characteristics to reflect the unique offer and identity of AGSA, drawing from the unconventional way it curates work as mentioned above, its commitment to unconventional and divergent thinking to maintain surprise, strong links to the indigenous community and its location in the heart of Australia’s cultural capital.

The foundation for the new brand platform that we developed, Forever Now, emerged from this existing practice of a dynamic curatorial agenda as well as AGSA’s unique connection to place.

You’ve worked with art, artists and museums across your career, what distinguishes this type of client?

We started our business 25 years ago with a cultural niche and it continues today, working in the cultural sector and engaging with artists to bring something unexpected to the everyday.

We regularly collaborate in order to be challenged and extended. There are pragmatic and also emotional aspects to this. The practical aspect is that, for any creator, taking inspiration from the wider world is paramount. If you're not continually drawing creative sustenance from as many sources as possible then you’re not growing.

Collaboration with artists can help to shape experiences, in part because a fresh influence injects originality into the storytelling but also because an artist comes along and mutates the original thinking. We often say that “collaboration is contamination” and we love that. A new influence can come in and turn an idea on its head. Literally blow it up. That’s when really unexpected and truly unique outcomes are achieved.

Museums have commercial objectives like most clients, but their conceptual aptitude to engage with creative thinking and concepts is second nature which is a point of difference. Certainly in the case of the Art Gallery of South Australia, they are conceptually focused with ideas informed by intellect and anchored by a strong sense of identity. They go beyond the obvious and the aesthetic.

(more…)