Melbourne Uni Sports

Category
Signage System

Sector
Education, Sports

My role
Lead Designer

A little bit about the project.

Project Brief & Challenges

Melbourne University is the second oldest university in Australia and the oldest in Victoria. In 2018, the university had undergone a re-branding process to make the university visually more appealing and modern to younger millennial generations. The design brief is to create a contemporary and dynamic wayfinding and signage system for their sports gym facilities: the Beaurepaire building and the Main Sports Building.

The main challenge of this project is to ensure that the visual design of the signage looks consistent across different sports buildings. As most buildings are heritage buildings, we are not allowed to paint any new colours on the walls of the buildings. We need to find a solution as to how we can add a modern and contemporary twist to the building whilst honouring their heritage as well.

Signage Solutions

Materials
We wanted to add a new look onto the sports buildings without having to disrupt or renovate the look and condition of the current walls or windows. So, we decided to overlay new materials on top of the old walls with sleek and modern materials, such as: powder cut steel and duo-tone vinyl decal. By doing this, we successfully created a new wayfinding system that evokes a sense of boldness and sportsmanship.

Chosen colour palette
The light blue colour palette was chosen to evolve the historical colour of the university giving the brand a new, more flexible colour spectrum. Meanwhile, the dark blue colour is used to keep all visual aspects of the wayfinding consistent with the University's original brand. The chosen colour palette is then utilised across various wayfinding systems from banners to wall murals.

Illustration
We also decided to develop a set of illustration of athletes to add a sense of community & sportsmanship into the signage system. There are two sets of illustration style created for the signage system.

Set 01: Illustrative Athletes
For this illustration style, I started by sourcing sport photos of athletes from Google. I then observed and imagined the negative and positive spaces or shapes that can emerge as shadows/lights hit the body of a sports player. The final result of this experimentation is an illustration style that is quite minimalistic, sleek, and bold in its approach. Curvy lines are also incorporated across the illustration to create a sense of active movement and dynamism. This illustration are mostly applied to flag banners and wall murals located in the Melbourne Uni Main Sports Building.

Illustration of athletes

Set 2: Illustrative Collages of Melbourne Uni Student Athletes
For this illustration style, our focus/aim is to bring a raw, genuine, and original sense of belonging and community. So, we utilised a series of photos of Melbourne Uni student athletes and turned it into a collage. There are various photos ranging from athletes laughing with their team mates, athletes holding on their cup of victory, and more. We believe that these photos tell a story of victory and sportsmanship; thus, would empower the students walking down the hallways to celebrate their university and also fellow students. This illustration is applied onto the info cabinet wall & main entrance foyer located in the Melbourne Uni Main Sports Building.

Illustrative collages of athletes

Wayfinding Application on the Buildings

The images below show the photos of the before and after the way-finding designs were applied to different sections
of the Beaurepaire Sports Centre & Main Sports building.

Main Sports Building Wayfinding System

For the Main Sports Building, we successfully created a design that feels continuous from the main entrance all the way to the squash court. The blue colour on the walls will help attract visitors to embark on a sports journey with us right from the doorstep. Visitors are welcomed with a wall of welcoming messages from the team at Melbourne University Sport at the entrance foyer. They will move along the info cabinet wall where they can read more about the achievements of fellow student-athletes. Visitors will then pass through the long hallway decorated with illustrative murals of athletes before they then will embark on their own chosen sports for the day.