On their 21st anniversary BDAV have reinvented themselves for the future

To coincide with their twenty-first anniversary, the Building Designers Association of Victoria began the search for a new corporate identity. Geoff Hoare, President of the BDAV, knew the old logo did not reflect the changes the organisation had undergone and was not an accurate image of today's BDAV. He just wasn't sure what the current BDAV might look like in two-dimensional form. So he ran a competition to find out.

Toward the end of 2003, the BDAV selected some of Melbourne's more energetic visual communicators and gave them an open brief for a new identity. The brief was essentially to reflect the BDAV's current role back to itself, to say something, graphically, about its representative role in the building design industry to its thriving membership. The competing visions came in and it was the team at iezzi™ who best captured the BDAV of now and the future in colour and form.

In developing their ideas, iezzi™ first got acquainted with who the BDAV are today. The BDAV is a representative organisation with over 800 members from the building design and architectural and drafting industry. It's the premier association in its area and growing all the time. Its primary function is representing its diverse membership, from those in drafting services to architects, offering continual professional development and other specialised programs. For example, the BDAV runs its own accredited design courses and is also involved in mentoring at RMIT and with course structure and industry representation at Holmesglen. In one way or another, the BDAV is now dedicated to 'up-skilling' its membership.

Hoare had also begun the process of raising the profile of the BDAV and of building design as an area of expertise. Articles have recently appeared in Domain in The Age and Home Magazine in the Herald Sun. With this serious commitment to building design, the change in corporate identity also needed to lift the BDAV's profile and let people know what its role is. The old logo, almost forty years old, was tired. In fact, many people often described the logo as a camera and took the organisation for a photography club. According to Hoare, it was the current more progressive executive committee at the BDAV, especially David Mulhall with his keen eye for marketing that provided the driving force for change.

Mulhall asked the executive committee to collect together the folios of different design firms, those people already knew of or had worked with. The idea for a competition spun out of that process and finally three of the firms were invited to vie for the job of reinventing the BDAV. iezzi™ and two other firms were invited to submit a conceptual design, for which each was paid. They were given a very loose brief - who do you think we are and who should we become? The BDAV did not want to inhibit their interpretations. Ultimately, the winner would be the one who best expressed this and would get the job of expanding their concept into the full corporate identity.

Anthony Iezzi, Director Creative at iezzi™, got to work immediately, not by leafing through design annuals but instead by getting to know his client inside out. He looked at how the BDAV projected itself and formed a strong picture of what the organisation stood for.

"It's such a diverse organisation. The new identity needed to represent designers working in residential, commercial and industrial construction, but on the other hand reflect the dynamic and services offered by the peak body. In the end we felt that the project came back to design," says Iezzi, "We looked at history to provide a solution for today and tomorrow. Research lead us to the Bauhaus - the most important movement in architecture, design, and art of the 20th century. The final identity is deceptively simple in its design, its colour palette and refined typography."

"The team at iezzi™ hit the nail on the head," says Hoare, "They went for a Bauhaus font, which is architectural in nature. The red wall in perspective is also architectural in form and very, very simple. It's the simplicity.and red is a great colour. We were also keen to highlight the BDA in the logo - the focus on the BDA part of the name with the 'V' for Victoria secondary to that. Then the full name of the organisation is neatly set underneath the logo. It was a very well considered submission."

Once iezzi™ won the tender, work on developing the entire identity in all its applications began. Hoare says that while the committee then became more involved in the process, they were always careful not to interfere or mess with the basic concept too much. "We had a good empathy and an understanding of the process. There was just some tweaking of the colours and some parts of the newsletter and website," explains Hoare, "only minor changes."

The launch to the membership took place in late March. The new design will be used across all of the BDAV's many materials - its stationery, website, banners, newsletter, general forms and so on. Hoare points out that to change an identity is a big move and not everyone was comfortable at first. For this reason the change was not taken lightly and the final design submitted by iezzi™ was also favoured for the fact that the BDAV would get good mileage out of it.

"You can't change corporate branding too regularly because then you lose your identity," says Hoare, "To change too frequently becomes dangerous and we hope to keep this one for ten or twenty years. The simplicity is good here and the classic typeface is also a good move. Timeless."

The BDAV's new strong yet simple identity is launched and it seems, is here to stay. According to Hoare the whole look and concept of the identity fits well with this year's 21st anniversary theme. The theme is BDAV past, present and future, about change and being progressive and about the BDAV getting more serious about who they really are.