Award of Merit:

Balarinji for Nation Brand Mark

Since 1983, Australia’s foremost Indigenous design and strategy studio, Balarinji has worked to deepen the understanding of Aboriginal Australia for major projects nationally. Founded by our current Chair, Yanyuwa man John Moriarty AM, and current Managing Director, Ros Moriarty, the studio delivers design excellence and authentic engagement with Aboriginal people, culture, art, stories and identity. Balarinji is the skin name of Ros and John’s two sons, Tim Bundyan and James Djawarralwarral. Skin names denote a classificatory system that orientates people to land and relationships - to belonging. The studio began as a way to re􀂧ect Ros and John’s sons’ birthright, and that of their daughter, Julia Marayelu. They quickly became aware that Balarinji could also contribute something new and meaningful beyond the family, to Australia’s identity. Balarinji is known for our many iconic and nation-building design projects, including the Balarinji-Qantas Flying Art Series, featuring five aircraft with Aboriginal artwork livery between 1984 and 2018, as well as the Rio 2016 Paralympics Australian uniforms, the 2000 Walk for Reconciliation official poster, and many more. The studio has worked across a wide range of installation media and on many different interior and exterior sites, including large-scale public infrastructure, interpretive precincts, parklands, national and international institutions, corporate offices, retail outlets, public spaces and also uniforms. Balarinji was established at a time when Indigenous design was rarely showcased or celebrated. Over almost four decades Balarinji has developed an innovative co-design methodology that brings local Aboriginal creative practitioners and communities to the table for authentic storytelling, interpretation and a legacy of place within some of Australia’s largest public projects. Balarinji is the vanguard of a co-design methodology that is based on deeper collaboration with Indigenous stakeholders and community-endorsed creative practitioners local to Place. The National Museum of Australia, Canberra, holds the company’s design archive, its original works on paper and The John Moriarty Collection. Balarinji is also represented in the collections of Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum, Flinders University Museum of Art and the Centre for Contemporary Graphic Design, Fukuoka, Japan. In 2012, Balarinji’s founders established the not-for-profit organisation Moriarty Foundation. Delivering life-changing initiatives in remote Aboriginal communities, Indi Kindi and John Moriarty Football, Moriarty Foundation is a transformational Indigenous-driven solution to disparity.

About the Project

Balarinji was engaged by Austrade to design a Nation Brand Mark and graphics to raise the profile of Australian goods and services internationally and attract investment and visitors. The Nation Brand Mark features Australia’s most recognisable symbol, the kangaroo, in a style that reflects a contemporary and authentic Indigenous Australian identity. This kangaroo tells the story of Country, of belonging and of living sustainably. The cultural magnitude of the new Nation Brand is immense as it marks a significant change in how we identify ourselves as a nation as one that embraces its rich 60,000+ year-old Aboriginal heritage. One of the brief challenges was to create a design that was sector-agnostic and likely to be used by many different Australian businesses in a global context. The Nation Brand Mark has been very well received after it tested extremely well in international and domestic market research that showed it was considered representative of a modern, capable and inclusive country.

Category: Interact

Designers and Project Team:
Kungarakan man Toby Bishop, Graphic Designer & Lead Designer
Adam France, Senior Designer
Yanyuwa man John Moriarty AM, Balarinji Co-Founder, Cultural Director & Chair