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Sydney based Hulsbosch this month celebrates its 40th anniversary as a leading corporate brand and design agency.
Over the decades the agency has created and rejuvenated thousands of Australia’s most loved brand identities and global corporate leaders from designing the Seven Network and Football Australia’s logos to designing KFC and Coles Own packaging.
Australia’s biggest competitors share the agency’s services, creating the brand identity and positioning for both airline rivals Virgin and Qantas, and designing packaging and logos for both retail giants Woolworths and Coles.
Luke Dunkerley, former director marketing at Woolworths, commenting on Hulsbosch’s logo redesign of Woolworths said: “It must be love at first sight. You must see it and go weak at the knees, then go to bed and love it even more the next day.
“That’s what happened when Hulsbosch presented the icon.”
Woolworths sketches
Hans Hulsbosch: “Branding has come a long way in Australia and being at the forefront of its integration and shaping that history is a rare privilege."
Originally starting his career as a brand designer in The Netherlands, Hans Hulsbosch’s life goal was to be a graphic designer and own his own agency.
But when Hans came to Australia in 1979, he realised that brand design was subsumed in an advertising agency.
“They only focused on advertising, not understanding that in order to do a marketing campaign you need a brand first.
“That was all the motivation I needed to start my own branding company, because I realised that they got it the wrong way around.”
He started Hulsbosch Agency in 1982 with an ethos of combining research, strategy and brand/re-brand creation.
With Qantas as Hulsbosch’s first client in 1984, he made a big splash in the industry creating the airline’s flying kangaroo logo in 1982. An update in 2007 which led to a Cannes Lion.
Qantas in the news
The agency has been a serial winner of AdNews’ specialist agency of the year award, taking the title in 2012, 2010 and 1999, plus AdNews’ best travel ad of the year award for Sitmar Cruises in 1986.
Hans: “Gone are the days that a brand was defined by its product.
“Today, a brand is an identity that reflects the very essence of a company’s being; it is an entire, organic system that offers consumers unique experiences through a corporation's products and/or services.
“It’s great to see that the new generation of marketers understand the value of good branding.
“I hope they also develop a deep understanding of the branding process. That way they can work hand-in-hand with brand designers and strategists.”
And on the creative side, technology has dramatically changed his profession.
“I decry the fact that the artisan skills of hand drawing anything from preliminary sketching to lettering is dying.
“Using a humble pencil instead of a computer program has taken away the immediacy and embodiment of the actual process and subsequent outcome.”
The impact of technology is so profound that when asked what would you study if you had your time again? Hans said computer skills.
“But I wish I had learned better computer skills to make my ideas come to life even more.”
Although, one thing that will never change is the entrepreneurial ambition of creatives to start their own agency, as one of Australia's influential brand designers, Hans offers his best advice for those wanting to take the plunge.
“If you are passionate about what you want from your working career and you’re prepared to put in the hours, then don’t procrastinate and go for it.
“Be realistic about your design skills as it will give you the understanding how you can further enhance those unique talents.
“Never stop learning and develop a wide understanding of the power of a brand, brand design and branding.
“Don’t follow others, but don’t work in a vacuum either: brainstorming in a team is the way to go.”
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