Introducing our new brand
Building on our beloved history, our new brand will better reflect how we support people living with low vision or blindness today.
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.
Why change the Guide Dogs brand?
Every brand tells a story.
Ours is much-loved, but it needs some new chapters to better highlight how we support people with low vision or blindness.
In the past, our brand has not been as accessible as it should be for our Clients, and many of our supporters, employees and volunteers. In fact, people have told us of their challenges while reading and interacting with our brand in different situations.
Plus, our current brand doesn’t present the Guide Dogs family—which is a collection of state-based organisations—as one unified team offering the same services and supports to people no matter where you live or your financial situation.
By exploring new ways for our brand to sound, look and feel, we can tell a story that better represents Guide Dogs, and ultimately provide better supports for people with low vision or blindness and their support networks.
What will be different in the new brand?
We’ve developed our new brand through exciting collaborations with all sorts of people.
Both from within Guide Dogs and from the wider community.
Most importantly, our new brand is fully accessible with a modern look and feel. It will better reflect the wide range of services Guide Dogs offers, so everyone can clearly understand the wide range of supports we provide and how we work in the community.
Our beloved Guide Dogs will always be vital to our story, but now they’re part of a bigger picture. Our new brand is modern, dynamic and impactful, and builds on the strength of our history and of all our offerings.
We promise to keep you updated along the way as we embrace this new chapter in the Guide Dogs story.
Improved accessibility, enhanced support
Why introduce a new brand during a major health crisis (COVID-19)?
At Guide Dogs, we know accurate information about services and supports is more important than ever for our Clients while the COVID-19 virus remains a significant risk to health. We also know the last 12 months have been trying for everyone, and wanted to shed some light on an otherwise dark period.
We are working hard to ensure Guide Dogs’ Clients have access to the right information when they need it. Our new brand fits in with this strategy because it is fully accessible where our existing brand is not. In other words, our new brand will improve access to information for Clients in addition to better representing the whole Guide Dogs story beyond the breeding, training and supply of Guide Dogs.
Common questions
Common questions from donors and supporters
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.
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