Bringing ISO’s new brand to life through human-centric design

When 3 Swinburne University communications design graduates (who also went through high school together) decided to start their own business, they probably never anticipated that their designs would end up in millions of workplaces around the globe, communicating with people in nearly 150 languages.

In forming Cremorne-based Motherbird, Creative Director Jack Mussett, Managing Director Chris Murphy and Design Director Dan Evans created a design powerhouse that has been recognised by its peers for its ISO Brand Identity project – receiving both the best in category for communications design and the overall award of the year at the 2024 Victorian Premier’s Design Awards.

What is ISO?

International standards ensure that the products and services we use daily are safe, reliable, and of high quality. They also guide businesses in adopting sustainable and ethical practices, helping create a sustainable and equitable future.

Made-up of 167 national member organisations, including Standards Australia, the ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) brings together global experts to agree on the best way of doing things – for anything from making a product to delivering a service or managing a process.

As one of the oldest non-governmental international organizations, ISO has enabled trade and cooperation between people and companies around the world since 1946. The International Standards published by ISO serve to make lives easier, safer and better.

Local knowhow, global impact

On its website, the Motherbird team describes itself as mind benders, chance takers, rule breakers, perception shifters, connection enablers, vision builders and boundary pushers and it is these qualities that are exemplified in the ISO Brand Identity Project.

So how does a relatively small, Australian design studio land a huge client on the scale of the Geneva-based ISO?

Creative Director, Jack Mussett credits his company’s strong relationships and emphasis on collaboration for much of its success.

Motherbird had an existing 10-year relationship with the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC). When key staff shifted from the UICC to ISO, the trusted partnership continued.

The irony of no brand standardisation at ISO

While you would assume that an organisation which exists to set standards would have a consistent brand entity, it turned out the opposite was true.

At the inception of the brand identity project, ISO was utilising a wide range of colours, illustration styles and fonts, but it did have a core set of design principles and elements. Motherbird conducted a complete communication and collateral audit to fully understand the breadth of a potential transition to a new brand entity for the organisation. Defining the current brand equity, having full visibility over how ISO worked with its collateral and how it shared it with its millions of users worldwide were the foundation for injecting new life into the brand.

Key to the success of a project of this scale was the brand’s ability to be versatile and work across a huge number of applications and in multiple languages. It needed to be futureproof – evolving and changing as technology and demand dictates.

Protecting & reinforcing brand equity 

‘Our goal was to build a brand system that deliberately focused on minimalism and being as utilitarian as possible but with personality in the way it was expressed. I believe that a brand guardian is vital when it comes to protecting equity in a brand and the only way to achieve that in a big organisation is by educating the client about the importance of its brand,’ commented Jack Mussett.

‘Repetition across the lifetime of a brand is essential. When we first started working with ISO, there was no brand guardian, but today, it has a dedicated team of brand champions who ensure that standards put in place work successfully, are followed by all users and aren’t deviated from.’

‘As designers working on such an iconic project, it would be easy for us to get caught up in the process and want to introduce a custom typeface and custom illustration set but that could have easily fallen over. The brand needed to be standardised, readily available and open source across every language in a variety of contexts,’ he noted.

Motherbird made an ethical decision that was in the best interest of the client and project – to not complicate the brand and not require the client to invest money in developing something completely brand new when something already existed that served everyone’s needs. Motherbird took the ISO’s existing red colour palette and built a series of reds to complement it.  It redeveloped the illustration set, making it practical without the need to commission an illustrator for each new piece of collateral. The result is a beautiful, streamlined design language.

‘A great brand identity may not be immediately obvious to other people but that’s what standards are about and it’s also the mark of good design,’ said Jack

Challenging elements led to rewarding outcomes

Perhaps the greatest challenge that the design team faced when approaching this project was the sheer volume of different collateral and coming up with a brand system that worked equally across all media – digital and print – including what would be needed in the future.

A self-imposed challenge was implementing the grid system (which references the earth’s longitude and latitude lines) that forms the basis of the design. The concept behind the grid was important to the overall execution within ISO’s various documents. Granular content uses a zoomed-in grid and organisation-wide content uses a zoomed-out grid. The fine linework required mathematical precision to expand and contract the grid while ensuring it remained consistent when scaling from digital to print and adapting to the various shapes of collateral.

‘Mathematical equations aren’t usually part of our design process, but in this instance, they were integral. We had to use maths to make sure that the grid configuration would hold up in every circumstance. As much as it was a challenge, the grid concept delivered flexibility,’ said Jack.

‘It was highly rewarding as a ‘design nerd’ to work on a brand that is minimal Swiss – almost International style or Bauhaus in its referencing – and we took great pleasure in that kind of design expression. Because it was so different to consumer brand projects, it allowed us to really immerse ourselves in intricate design details like grids and typography, which we often don’t get the luxury of doing in other projects.’

Motherbird continues to have weekly meetings with the core ISO team to provide the in-house team with support when needed, and to offer guidance that helps keep all communications on brand and up to standard.

‘The gratitude and appreciation we’ve received from ISO throughout this process has been amazing. It’s been hectic, but the level of client engagement and passion for the project has been especially rewarding,’ said Jack.

‘We’re proud that the new brand identity is serving ISO so well. Telling people about this project is exciting. It’s generated interest from notable international design forums, like Brand New, and we’ve received great feedback. It also makes for a powerful case study when we’re meeting with potential clients.’

Why winning Victorian Premier’s Design Awards means so much to Motherbird

The fact that Motherbird generally doesn’t enter awards but has won both times it has put in VPDA submissions (2 awards this year and one for its Hey Tomorrow sustainable box wine design in 2021), speaks volumes about the studio’s project quality and its awards philosophy.

‘We don’t tend to submit because it takes a lot of resources, and it’s difficult for us to choose to highlight one client’s project over another as we believe each has distinctive merit. We prefer to wait for a project that truly fits the competition criteria,’ Jack said.

‘The VPDAs are different. What sets them apart is that they value the thinking and the positive aspect around design, not just the exterior look and feel – especially in communications design where the design’s impact and the way it’s used is so important. Being acknowledged by your direct peers with awards can often be a beauty contest, but the intent behind the VPDA makes winning them more meaningful,’ he added.

Victoria as an epicentre of great design

When asked about Victoria’s design capabilities, Jack was quick to point out what he thinks makes us so creative and able to ‘punch above our weight’ when it comes to the global design market.

‘We‘ve developed a way of thinking that’s a bit niche in Victoria and that may stem from the big investment that the government and the public make in the arts here,’ he remarked.

‘Multiculturalism, food and art all make us better designers and expose us to experiences that add up to what a good creative looks like. My personal philosophy is based on the idea of creating a more interesting world by working with interesting people and making a difference.’

With a broad portfolio of projects across health, safety and wellbeing, Motherbird is certainly flying the flag for Victorian design and taking its practical, minimal and striking design sensibility to the world, one piece of collateral at a time.