Tank Studio

December 2008: Melbourne branding agency Tank Studios have a strong portfolio of clean, well communicated design. To find out a little bit more about what goes on behind the scenes, we spoke to Creative Director Jim Antonopoulos.

Hi Jim. How long have you been in the industry?
I landed my first design job 18 years ago, studied design, worked as a graphic designer, went back and did a BA in Advertising and a Dip. in Marketing at RMIT in Melbourne. I spent some time working in online before the ’99 crash, and then found a focus in brand strategy and visual identity work which eventually brought me to TANK.

What have you guys been working on lately?
Today we just completed the new brand identity for Rideability Victoria, an organisation that provides horse riding opportunities for people with disabilities.
This year we revitalised the La Trobe University brand identity and brand visual language – we also did the same for Adshel Australia / New Zealand. Essentially we had to find what the simple truth was behind these organisations and find a way (or a few ways) to visualise it across all of their marketing collateral.
Over the year we also did some work for international engineering firm Connell Wagner, Spotless and Australia Post. Saying that, it’s not all big corporates, we did the identity for a Melbourne wine bar, and we’re currently working with an independent coffee roasting company and cafe based in South Yarra with their identity, packaging and collateral. We also do some work in property marketing for a bayside property developer which is brave and interesting work in itself.
We don’t really mind whether a client is a big corporate or a small, enterprising start-up – we look for clients that have an idea that inspires us, that value what we bring to the relationship as designers and creative, strategic thinkers, and someone that shares our belief that brand marketing is about finding a simple truth and not simply inventing it.
We’re not interested in marketing for marketing’s sake, we challenge our clients to find the truth behind their organisations and help them communicate that to an audience, be it new or old.

What makes Tank different?
I think the main thing that makes us different is the makeup of the ownership of TANK – there are four directors, myself the Creative Director with a background in brand strategy, Neil who has a Marketing Strategy background, Richard who is a Copywriter and Michelle who has a background in both creative and production. This is a unique makeup, and a great team, means that we are able to work on all types of clients across a wide variety of categories.
We also look for people who are creative thinkers, this includes the people we have in traditionally, non-creative roles – our project manager is also a professional photographer, and our studio manager is an accomplished musician. Our external team is comprised of a team of journalists, writers, photographers, web developers and linguists which enable us to work on projects from naming, to strategy to a wide range of brand identity and design.
We call ourselves a branding agency because we help our clients with branding problems, big or small. I guess our clients are the best people to categorise us. We can say whatever we like, it’s what we are in their eyes that really matters.

Adshel Australia / New Zealand / Rebrand. What was the initial brief ?
Adshel came to us not knowing how to define the problem they had. The brand had strong recognition in the market, yet there was confusion in the way they approached the application of their identity and how they communicated who and what they were. Their collateral wasn’t capturing the essence of the organisation and the various divisions didn’t have a strong representation.

So we called the project ‘Discovering the spirit of Adshel’.
This involved understanding who they currently thought they were as an organisation and who they wanted to be – within that, we discovered a simple truth about the brand that formed the basis for the redesign of their brand collateral, the restructure of their brand architecture and the redevelopment of a key sub-brand – all of which were now part of one uniform corporate personality.
We paired back the design of their corporate collateral to something clean and simple, which allowed their divisions and sub-brands (CREATE, pictured) to really shine. In the past, too much was tacked on to the master-brand that the other parts of the company were struggling to compete.

What were some of the challenges on the project?
I think as a creative, one of the main challenges is to rise above your preconceptions about a client/brand/project and look at it with fresh eyes. I also think that removing any personal attachment to ideas, although difficult, is paramount to being able to explore possibilities and look at the work in an objective way.
The main challenge in this project was really understanding the business problem until we were able to reiterate it to the client clearly. We always do this in the form of a reverse brief and because Adshel is such a complex organisation (they don’t just place ads in bus shelters), truly understanding this complexity was the main challenge.
Out of this challenge a really strong professional bond came out of it which see us continually working with them on advertising, brand and marketing projects.

The Vale naming and brand development. What was the initial brief ?
Property developer, Pace Developments approached us to create a name and identity for a block of apartments they are developing in Melbourne’s south-east bayside.
Having a writer on board and a team of journalists at hand, we happily engage in naming projects for quite a few clients.
Property development branding is interesting because more often than not, there isn’t a property and our job is to capture the essence of both the property and the place. Working closely with the architects and our photographer we are able to do this.
The core brief for this job was to create a name, brand identity and marketing collateral (brochure, sales kit) for this new property.

What were some of the challenges on the project?
Finding the right supplier for a project is always a challenge; you need to be confident in their abilities and in the fact that they understand what you as the creative lead are trying to achieve with the project. We were lucky enough to work with a great photographer and an amazing 3D visualisation team who brought the architect’s plans to life through some outstanding renderings.

As an agency do you follow a particular process when creating a new visual identity for a brand?
We do. Our process is different for each client and catered completely to the intricacies of their project. It is based on best-practice and is tweaked and changed accordingly. The process for the Adshel project (mentioned above) was planned out well in advance and was nothing like we’ve ever done before because it encapsulated so many different disciplines – brand identity design, illustration, brand architecture strategy, publishing … the list goes on. We had to develop a process that captured all of these disciplines and was tight enough to keep us on track 12 months later.

What advice would you have to younger designers entering the industry?
A few things I wished I knew when I graduated:
- set some goals and make some decisions on what your ideal job will be.
- learn about the studios you’re approaching, read trades mags and seek mentorship, feedback and advice from those that have gone before you.
- be nice.
- be professional.
- don’t spend $200 on a folio, your work is more important
- don’t try to be like everyone else
- have a list of questions ready to ask at the end of the interview. You’ll always be asked ‘do you have any questions for us?’
- soak it up, be a part of the industry, join agda, go to events and immerse yourself in it all.

Links:
www.tankstudio.com.au