Blog

Brand naming can be hard, but it’s easy compared to brand renaming. Brand naming: coming up with a strategic, relevant and available name for a new company, product or service is challenging. Engaging stakeholders and bringing them on a journey, getting buy-in on preferred options…

Located in the heart of Melbourne’s CBD, 357 Collins St is a prestigious office address that has been transformed into a vibrant new precinct. Working closely with Frasers Property, their architects, and the property management team, we set out to redefine the experience of 357…

One of the real tests of a brand’s reputation comes post purchase. With cars, the service experience is a critical influencer of brand perception, customer loyalty and retention. For many auto brands this can be extremely hard to manage. Local dealers are often franchised and…

Could ‘Appear Here’ be the saviour for retail? In the digital world, having a physical brand presence is more important than ever. Nothing beats the opportunity to share and interact with your customers in the flesh. However, the costs of finding and maintaining traditional retail…

Creating the best mix of colours has never been so daunting. From print to digital, books to apps, the decision to finalise a particular colour palette for your project can be overwhelming at times. Colour combinations are a tricky business so why not gather the…

We are delighted to announce that our annual charity event, Art with Heart 2018 raised $13,407.25 for StartOut, a local health promotion charity providing regional outreach and mentorship programmes for young people of diverse sexuality and gender (DSG). Through funds raised, StartOut will be able to pay for the…

So the brand is done, the visual language nutted out and press applications approved. The one thing left to finish is the website, a beast, a force to be reckon with and will take no prisoners. Sometimes you find yourself stuck at where to begin,…

The iconic Mailchimp brand was already lovely with its scripted font evolved from the original design by the talented lettering artist Jessica Hische. You can see the logo revision process here, jessicahische.is/monkeyingaround. The new rebrand created by Collins, evolves Mailchimp yet again to be a…

  Maker Park is a proposed adaptive reuse park that will revitalize an unused industrial site on the waterfront in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Conceived by a group of community activists, the initiative will transform the seven-acre site formerly known as the Bayside Fuel Terminal into a hub for…

Aston Martin has announced the ultimate collectors toy with the news they are going to make 28 Goldfinger DB5 reproductions. Aston Martin is working with EON Productions and Chris Corbould the special effects wizard whose resume includes Star Wars, Batman and all the Bond movies…

A recent study for Adobe shows that investing in experience transformation across people, process and technology delivers superior business performance. Experience-driven businesses (EDBs), as defined by Forrester Consulting, consistently deliver on metrics that align to their revenue growth, customer acquisition, and customer retention goals. The…

Beautiful lettering created by Pellisco An art form that was heavily used during the early centuries in illuminated manuscripts, hand lettering is still strong on the design scene and hopefully here to stay. You probably walk past hand lettering on a daily basis, from artisan chalkboards…

  I remember sitting on the brown leather couch in my parents ‘den’ watching Goonies on our Rankarena television. It was the 80s and we had a shag pile rug on the floor, mission brown with green striped curtains and circular patterned orange cushions. The…

Just as summer here finally ends Magnum has revealed a European wide campaign for the Summer that achieves a kind of sophistication the brand has always reached for but never quite got. Mainly due to the simplicity and style of the illustrations of Thomas Danthony, which…

It was a rather dark and gloomy Monday inside and outside of the studio. Our spirits were weathered from the weekend and we nursed a grievance against the sudden wintry weather. It was around noon that we received a little brightness in the form of…

Sharing some inspiring TED talks to get you thinking in different ways… enjoy!! Your elusive creative genius Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of ‘Eat, Pray, Love’, muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses — and shares the radical idea that, instead of…

It is always amazing coming across ideas which make you wonder ‘how has this never existed before?’, take for example this new braille typeface created by the clever Japanese designer Kosuke Takahashi. The typeface, aptly named Braille Neue, is a collection of both English and…

A perfect example of our brand culture at work: 1. start with an engaging experience – our weekly mindfulness session 2. throw in a bit of our brand personality – colourful: playful, spirited and lively 3. mix in one of our brand values – the…

Brands find innovative ways to merge entertainment and technology with traditional shopping to survive. ‘Experiential Retail’ or ‘Retailtainment’ is one of the biggest growth areas in retail at the moment. Just like Google’s pop up store in Manhattan, brands are constantly seeking innovative ways to…

The end of the digital offline divide is in sight or it should be. FSFK’s Future of Retail 2018 outlines how companies can transform their stores into experience centres that extend their supply chain and digital commerce platforms, creating mutual value with a focus on…

Anyone who’s ever worn heels for a day at the races, the idea of taking them off before you start the long trip home has enormous appeal. At this year’s carnival, Myer were giving away comfortable, practical, and not completely unstylish, branded slides – manna…

I recently visited Japan to satisfy my life long obsession for all things Studio Ghibli and my fascination for Japanese culture. I was determined to soak up as much inspiration from all aspects of the country to feed into my design practice, and there are…

  People are living more hectic lives, where being busy is now a competitive sport. This can cause stress, and stress boosts cortisol, turning us to fight or flight mode. So, to create some peace in the daily grind, Grolsch decided to do a music-fuelled…

Brand collaboration reinforces Hotel Indigo’s brand difference. Hotel Indigo and leading global fashion brand Asos have partnered to create fashion inspired travel discovery. It’s a smart brand collaboration that finds another way to leverage the hotel’s one of kind boutique hotel experience. The Hotel Indigo…

  With every organisation there are actions that have a disproportional effect on a brand. As you go up the tree in any company it’s the people at the top, the exec level that have this the opportunity to have such an effect on their…

Hyde Park July 1st, 2017 Green Day are the headline act to a sold out concert. Over 65,000 fans wait in anticipation… Queen’s 1975 hit, Bohemian Rhapsody, starts to play, and the audience creates the most spine tingling sing-a-long… an iconic song, over 40 years…

Have you ever had one of those moments where you’re drifting off to sleep and a great idea or solution pops into your head, only to be lost the next morning, unless you take time to get up and write your thoughts down? Or maybe…

The Royal Botanic Gardens is one of my favourite places in Melbourne. Famous for their beautiful gardens, conservation of plants, and their visitor and education programs, the organisation does great work around sharing the importance of plants to life. To me it’s the gardens that…

It doesn’t matter how much you spend on strategy, branding, creative, media or reputation if there’s something wrong with your culture. As Uber is currently proving. It’s impossible in today’s society to mask an internal culture with brand. Sooner or later the truth will out…

Grids, rules, order, harmony — qualities that typically define ‘good design.’ What happens when all of this is thrown out? When chaos is embraced and celebrated? It’s called brutalist web design and it’s taking the design world by a storm. In this post we will take…

Moët & Chandon continues to flirt with their vending machines to extend the brand’s accessibility but does it cheapen the brand? The Moët vending machine has been making appearances in London bars and even Selfridges, now it’s popped up in a Vegas Hotel. You can now enjoy a Moët…

Custom Apple accessory maker 12 South has created a ‘New Mac Smell’ candle for this Christmas. While it’s got plenty of headlines for obvious reasons. For me it raises the question: What do sensory branding do you do? We’re all aware of brands that have…

Farmers Fund milk brand clouds the issues As predicted Coles have started muddying the waters around fair Milk prices by introducing an undifferentiated milk brand called Farmers Fund to the market. The brand which ‘gives back’ 40c of each 2 litre carton to a Fund…

When mega brands go organic Gatorade is introducing an organic version of it’s brightly coloured sugar water for ‘athletes’. While the new product will be tested in select markets it seams Pepsi Co., the parent brand, sees the threat to the market dominant sports drink from more…

Optus is the second largest telecommunications provider in Australia offering mobile, fixed, and broadband services to consumer and business customers. It has repositioned itself in the market with a flexible rebrand. You may remember their recent rebrand back in 2013 that received many mixed reviews and…

Less Car Showroom – More Inspiring Brand Experience On my trip this month to Paris I was struck by a new addition to the glitzy end of the Champs Elysees shopping strip – Car Galleries. Within a few blocks of this uber expensive retail real…

  The Science of Brand Influence Here at Truly Deeply we bang-on a lot about brand experiences and why they are so important for brand engagement. The science behind this phenomena is what we call the Dopamine effect. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter (a chemical in…

By its nature, a boutique brand built on super relevant experiences is intrinsically linked to one location. Brand and independence are often at odds, but W Hotels seems to have cracked the code of how to scale luxury experiences and having a clearly defined brand…

When is a car more than a brand? Never! Specially when we don’t want to talk about the car, but we still have to sell them? Volkswagen latest campaign #morethanacar focused directly on the value of brand heritage to stir the emotions in the car…

Meeting crazy demands from clients, software problems and frantically working to ridiculous deadlines are just some of the stuff designers have to put up with on a regular basis. Most of the time, the struggles go unnoticed outside the studio, so wouldn’t it be nice…

Would you launch a new newspaper brand today? Newsprint is dead, or so we keep hearing. So what do you do if your business is Newsprint? This is the kind of challenge lots of brands have. What do you do when your whole category is heading…

Big food’s short term thinking on sugar Every day there seems to be more and more information surfacing about the activities of major food brands in response to the obesity epidemic the western world is facing. There’s little doubt they’re using their financial muscle and…

Iconic Aussie surf brand gets $US600m refinancing approval from US Court and makes big brand plans. With its finances now under control, Quicksilver is planning to turn around fledgling brand with ‘boardrider’ stores that showcase the true brand experience.

A Branding Challenge for market Leaders Microsoft has launched the latest evolution of their brand mark at the opening of its new store in Boston. The task of keeping a brand’s visual language fresh and relevant to the market is critical (we recently wrote a…

Not all brand activities are born equal. This is a brand principle that Nike know better than most brands as the recent release of the ‘Nike sole’. The Nike sole has been developed to fit onto the ‘flex-run’ prosthetic running blade, designed for by Nike…

A High Class Brand Problem So what do you do when you’re the global market leader? When your brand and packaging is recognized in almost every corner of the world? When your product and brand already command a premium price? What on earth do you…

Welcome to the New Retail Era The world of retail is changing more rapidly than ever. On-line stores compete with off-line stores, fashion boutiques feature new ranges every month, and it seems almost everything can be made in China for next to nothing, creating undifferentiated…

All Brands Have Meaning Whether carefully and strategically considered or by default, all brands hold associated meanings in the minds of the market place. Well considered brands establish a competitive brand proposition (their brand strategy) with layers of meaning to both differentiate themselves from their…

Building Your Brand’s Visual Properties When creating a corporate image for our clients brands, we focus on building unique brand properties that can be leveraged to become brand assets. A brand’s typeface is one of the visual properties we incorporate into the brand design process,…

We recently sold our house through Marshall White, hiring an off-site self-storage unit in the process. We not only invested a reasonable sum in doing that, but also hours of weekend time carting our much loved (if little needed) household junk over to the storage…

Like all new frontiers, social media is a lawless place where anything goes, especially when it comes to brand. Everyone seems to have moved into these boom towns with a population of more than 12 million people projected for Twitterville alone this year. It’s a on-line,…