New logo: Opera Australia

Opera Australia is Australia's primary opera company, performing at the famed Sydney Opera House as well as other venues. This past August, it introduced a new visual identity, created by Interbrand Sydney.

Interbrand summarised the brand as "Setting Opera Free", opening up opera to everyone. This is reflected in a dynamic logo that "opens up". It can be extended into the full name, abbreviated to "Opera" or be collapsed as the abbreviation OA. They also worked on other parts of Opera Australia's visual communication, including imagery. Vertical lines, inspired by musical notation, are used in many applications.

Previous logo.

"We devised a logo system that could open up opera. From OA, to OPERA, to OPERA AUSTRALIA, the identity expands to contain the rich and diverse range of activities the organisation represents.

There's so much more to opera than just the performance on the stage, and this new brand seeks to express that opera isn't one-dimensional – it's multi-dimensional. The costumes, the sets, the stories, the music, the emotion, the stars, the venues, etc. We expressed this by introducing vertical bars, based on musical notation, to separate the different dimensions of opera. Bars change thickness, vertical position and pace to represent the music. In motion, they move at different speeds, representing different instruments and voices; overlapping each other to open up and wipe content in and out.

Images were designed to communicate the genre of productions; helping people understand opera's diversity. Comedies feel funny, tragedies feel sad, and romances feel passionate. We engaged the talents of internationally acclaimed Australian fashion photographer, Georges Antoni to bring a contemporary twist to our classic content.

We took the multiple-dimensional concept one step further with the introduction of an entirely new voice. Since we believe that opera is for everybody, we chose to write articles about the most compelling dimension of each opera. That could be the set design, costume design, location, lead performer, director, technical innovation, the music – in fact anything that was fresh news for established audiences and enticing for new ones." - Interbrand

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