Event branding for the 2025 Keith Murdoch Oration at State Library Victoria

One of the tricky things about working with brand guidelines is following the rules, when they don’t seem to fit the brief.

Here’s an example:

The corporate typeface for State Library Victoria is Avant Garde Gothic. Designed in 1970 by Herb Lubalin and Tom Camase, it found inspiration in the German Bauhaus movement with clean, geometric lines and some crazy alternate characters.

If it looks familiar, it’s probably because it’s used in the Adidas logo.

Avant Garde is a solid typeface, but it doesn’t scream ‘elegant black-tie event’.

As a designer, this is a common scenario – needing to use typefaces and colours that don’t quite match the vibe of an individual project.

The secret sauce is found in combination.

For example, as long as the majority of the text is typeset in the corporate font, we can combine it with a more decorative font – usually in headings, and used sparingly.

Likewise, a colour palette doesn’t mean you have to use the colour as 100% tint.

You can use a brand colour plus black in an image and make a duotone, which has a completely different feel. Or use two colours side-by-side that are uncommon combinations.

See an example we created for the 2025 Keith Murdoch Oration below: