MAUD

As one of the country’s greatest exports, the dramatic arts continue to help Australia punch above its weight on the international stage. Since 1958, NIDA has been integral to a renowned performing arts sector in Australia, supporting the individual vision of its graduates and exporting planeloads of performers to Hollywood. NIDA needed a world-class identity to ensure the organisation, and Australia, continues to earn its rightful place on the world stage.

The rise of YouTube and similar channels has seen the democratisation of performance – anyone can do it. This has increased the volume of ‘dramatic art’ being produced and compromised its overall quality as the number of original performances decline. The value of dramatic arts to Australian society is at risk of eroding and now more than ever, NIDA’s conservatoire approach and its pursuit of technical mastery plays a key role in preserving a high standard of education.

A contemporary new identity, rooted in a consistent yet flexible design system, befits NIDA’s status as a global cultural powerhouse, while the brand architecture is designed to broaden NIDA’s appeal beyond the dramatic arts in response to growing demand for performance skills across a wide range of industries.

The campaign illustrates the power of performance through portraiture and audience reaction. Designed to drive enrolment to NIDA’s Open and Studios programs, we showed young and adult audiences a show reel of work produced by NIDA graduates while internationally-renowned photographer Derek Henderson captured their individual reactions in motion and still imagery. The images capture humanity in its purest form and reiterate the power of performance and therefore the importance of the performing arts.