Primed for culture change

During the process of many of the publication redesign projects we’ve undertaken, it’s become obvious that the single-most influencing factor deciding whether the result was successful or not is the client’s willingness—and ability—to embrace change. And not just in a design sense, but in a whole business sense as well.

Primed is an organisation specialising in large-scale culture-change management, who use a process of ‘educational drama’ (a combination of acting, facilitating, filming, coaching, designing, visualising and most other ‘ings’) to enable people on both sides of change—instigating and receiving—to experience the best possible outcomes.

As Primed’s ‘strategic partner’, we regularly bring their varied programs to life, using a combination of storytelling, information design and multimedia. The briefs range from creating the look and feel of an entire event, to forming the underlying narrative which captures the essence of the message being conveyed, to developing quirky and surprising ‘takeaway’ items for event delegates, to designing materials for ongoing internal use. Clients have included Telstra, PepsiCo, NSW Maritime, Mission Australia, The University of newcastle and The University of Technology, Sydney.

We thoroughly enjoy our ongoing relationship with Primed. It’s a rare privilege to work on projects which are consistently challenging and surprising—not just for our clients, but for us as well.

This ‘organisational flowchart’ created for The University of Newcastle maps the (somewhat farcical)
process of changing a lightbulb—illustrating the pitfalls of bureaucratic management styles.
Many of our print pieces work in tandem with bespoke animations (see below).

We designed a chart displaying a series of ‘signal flags’ for NSW Maritime, demonstrating the desired
attitudes towards significant impending structural changes. The chart was laminated and attached to a
rope tie—so there’d be no risk of the message being lost at sea.

Our first collaboration with Primed was for a highly topical conference on water sustainability in Perth.
Creating this ‘Wet Australian’ tabloid in the style of the region’s biggest paper was the natural solution, not least
because we’d just helped redesign the real one. As well as designing this piece, we wrote all the articles as well—
a veritable feast of poo jokes and bad puns, and up to that point, a personal career highlight.