Victoria is one of the states in Australia. It is located in the southeast of the country and is its second-smallest state. On the north, there is New South Wales, while on the west, there is South Australia.Also, there is a small patch of land border with Tasmania. The majority of the 6.6-million population lives in the central south area.
In August 2015, the government amazed taxpayers by adopting a new visual brand identity — at a cost of more than $20 million. It was part of the government’s attempt to attract more investment and major events, or “to better sell the state to the world”, as Premier Daniel Andrews put it. Although the new Victoria logo caused controversy, quite a few marketing experts claimed it was a necessary step for the state.
What is Victoria
The state of Victoria (Australia) has its capital in Melbourne, which is also the state’s largest city. The population is known for its diversity, with more than 35% being immigrants.
The old version was somewhat reminiscent of a jigsaw puzzle. There was a white triangle with blue stars inside. They represented one of the key parts of the state’s set of symbols -the stars of the Southern Cross could be also seen on the flag of Victoria, the state badge of Victoria, and its coat of arms. Here, the stars adopted a rather modern look as they were surrounded by simple geometric shapes rather than shields, as in the older versions.
The modified version was based on a blue rectangle. In the top right-hand part of the rectangle, the familiar triangle from the “jigsaw puzzle” could be seen.
The lettering “State Government Victoria” was placed inside the blue shade and was given in white. The first two letters were small, which made them barely legible in smaller sizes. The name of the state featured larger glyphs. Although it was a serif type, the serifs looked rather modern.
The new visual brand identity was developed by the advertising agency Ogilvy Australia.
The short version of the Victoria logo was based on a blue triangle with the word “Victoria” superimposed on it. The first three glyphs were positioned over the triangle and were white, whereas all the other glyphs were beyond the borders of the triangle and were blue.
Below the lettering “toria”, the words “State Government” could be seen in smaller letters.
Let’s compare this version with the previous Victoria State logo.
On the one hand, they both feature a triangle and a prominent name of the state. However, in the newer logo, the typeface is an all-caps sans, it is cleaner and bolder, which also makes it better legible. Even the writing “State Government” is easier to read.
The fact that there are no geometric shapes, apart from the triangle, also makes the design easier to grasp. The previous one, with its stars and the rectangle, may seem too noisy now. However, the stars are an integral part of the state’s symbolism, so, with them, the logo lost some of its identity.
There is also a version with additional details. Here, the triangle together with the wordmark is placed inside a large rectangle. The rectangle is broken down into two incongruent parts. The left-hand part is of a warm green shade, while the right-hand part is dark blue.
The border between them coincides with the right-hand side of the triangle. As a result,half of the logo is within the green field, whereas the other half is in the dark blue field. The dark blue field also houses the tagline “Best of Everything”.
The palette of the full Victoria logo offers a unique and memorable combination of colors. They symbolize lush vegetation and the endless ocean.
The clear lines of the typeface used for all the words in the logo result in a perfectly legible wordmark.