A brand new chapter for Guide Dogs Australia.
At Guide Dogs Australia, we know the importance of putting one foot in front of another and having the courage to move forward, no matter the barriers we face. After all, we have been in the business of supporting people with low vision or blindness to overcome barriers for over 60 years.
Building on our beloved history, our new brand will better reflect how we support people living with low vision or blindness today.
Guide Dogs is one of Australia’s most trusted charities, with more than 60 years’ experience supporting people who are blind or have low vision.
We’ve come a long way in that time, and things have changed since we introduced the first Guide Dogs into Australia all those years ago.
Today, we offer so much more than just our splendid Guide Dogs. We know that people’s needs are changing. Supporting someone through a change in vision—or their experience of long-term low vision—requires choice and flexibility. Sometimes, it requires new technologies or support services beyond our beloved Guide Dogs.
To reflect these changes, we’re excited to be introducing a new accessible Guide Dogs brand that will improve the way we sound and feel through images, colours, the way we talk, and more.
We are updating our brand to help better identify Guide Dogs to our clients, referrers, supporters and funding bodies as the only truly national provider of a wide range of specialist vision services, beyond our Guide Dogs. Introducing a new brand is not just symbolic. It’s a change to the way we engage with important stakeholders like you, the way we talk about ourselves, and the way we make others feel. We want this brand to help bring all our states together, with a strong spirit of collaboration and consistency. Our new brand will also be accessible for everyone. It will stand out against other brands and communicate what Guide Dogs stands for to help build trust in all our vision services beyond our iconic Guide Dogs.
No, we’re not merging. Each state will remain under their current structure and as part of the existing federated model. The new brand is all about better identifying ourselves as the only truly national provider of a wide range of specialist vision services, beyond our Guide Dogs. It’s a way to bring all our states together, with a strong spirit of collaboration and consistency.
Guide Dogs Australia is sharing the cost as a national body, though this cost has been modest in this instance and shared by all the states. We have also had terrific pro-bono support from our agency partners to bring the new brand to you all as cost effectively as we can.
At Guide Dogs, we’re focussed on improving the accessibility of both our services and our brand to enable the people we support have an inclusive and accessible experience. For that reason alone, we believe this was a much-needed modest investment.
The implementation of our new brand will also provide significant savings to our organisation moving forward, thanks to the huge efficiencies we will generate when creating new national photography, videos and marketing and fundraising materials.
We expect some, but very little. The process chosen to introduce the new brand over the next 12-24 months means that there is enough time to use up most stock and replace most branded equipment as part of the normal operations of the organisations. This is the most cost-effective way of introducing the brand and ensures minimum waste.
Yes, we are. Providing Guide Dogs will always be an important part of what we do and who we are – but it’s not all we do. The new brand update that’s underway is all about better identifying the broad range of services that Guide Dogs provides so we are a more effective service to the community. This new brand will help ensure our Clients, referrers, new supporters and funding bodies know we are the only truly national provider of a wide range of specialist vision services, beyond our Guide Dogs.
The dog has long been an identifier for Guide Dogs and will always remain so – but it’s important to realise that it can also give the perception to our Clients, referrers, supporters and referring bodies that training dogs is all we do. Removing the dog from the logo means our logo can now be used in a wider range of applications and sizes, with our iconic ‘Guide Dogs’ name sharing the brand value and trust we’re known for to all our services. It also makes our logo accessible for our Clients.
A lot of the time, particularly with materials for donors, a dog will still be featured alongside the logo, and any dog services promotional collateral will continue to feature a dog.
