Australia Post is very proud of its emblem, which has featured the post horn symbol for almost four decades.
In 1975, the so-called Postmaster General’s Department was split into two separate companies, Telecom Australia and Australia Post. Both got an independent brand identity.
The original Australia Post logo was developed in 1975 by Pieter Huveneers, a designer who lived and worked in the Netherlands, the UK, and Australia, where he created a number of well-known works (ACI, Colonial Mutual Life, Dulux, Myer, TAA, Tooth & Co, and Westpac, to name just a few).
Huveneers designed an icon featuring a postal horn (the device used by European postmen when they needed to make an announcement). In the negative space, a “P” could be seen.
Another version of the logo, created in 1975, featured the iconic red and white ambler accompanied by delicate yet stable and contemporary lettering in bold black lines. The “Australia Post” inscription was set in two levels on the right from the graphical part of the visual identity. This version was used by the editorial for more than twenty years.
In the 1990s, the Australian Postal Corporation decided to update its brand identity. The problem with it was that the company couldn’t protect its own corporate name. “Australia” and “Post” are the type of words that can’t belong to a single organization. So, AusPost commissioned the Emerystudio agency to develop a strategy that would make people associate the word “Post” with only one company (in other words, to turn it into a marketing name).
Designers from the Emerystudio decided to make the red color, which was already perceived by the public as the color that “belonged” to AusPost, the cornerstone of the identity. That’s why they excluded the black, which could be seen on the original logo.
The authors of the updated logo also used a different type and made the word “Post” stand out.
The logo, designed in 1996, was refined in 2014. The horizontal red banner was removed and now the circular emblem was placed in a solid square, on the left from the red lettering, located on a white background. The inscription was executed in the same typeface as on the previous logo version but looked more powerful due to the color switch.
In 2019 the Australia Post logo was redesigned again. The color palette remained untouched, and the emblem is still set on the left from the lettering, but the solid square is gone, and now the circle is placed right on a white background. As for the logotypes it is written in a title-case, with both levels using a traditional sans-serif typeface for its smooth thick letters.
The brand uses the Zurich type family for its logo. The word “Post” features a slightly tweaked version of Zurich Extra Black, while the word “Australia” is given in Zurich Condensed.
While the previous Australia Post logo featured black, white, and red, the current emblem only comprises white and red.