Royal Melbourne Hospital

Below: Before and After Images in Slide Show, Video, Summary, Credits

The Royal Melbourne will always be an icon. But there comes a time when even one like Melbourne’s first hospital needs to break from tradition and set its sights on the future.

As Australia’s health ecosystem became more complex and competitive, it was time to rethink this iconic brand from the ground up.

As Melbourne’s first hospital, we needed to honour the original identity while still making it modern. The updated visual identity and brand personality is a simplified, digital-friendly evolution of the much-loved heritage crest. A fresh, candid photography style highlights the commitment and care and engages the community on an emotional level.

The visual identity system shows how world-leading biomedical science and real people come together to solve big health problems.

The shift from The Royal Melbourne Hospital to Melbourne Health left employees unsure of who they worked for. We needed to hear from them to create support for the new brand, and to uncover what made RMH unique.

We worked closely with employees, volunteers, and consumer advocates to determine what defined the hospital’s culture, engaging over 1,000 employees.

We gained insights and recommendations through co-creation workshops, interviews, discussion groups, and surveys.

The final piece was updating their purpose, ‘Advancing health for everyone every day’. And a community promise, ‘Always there when it matters most’. Capturing two sides of a unique organisation and speaking to the hospital’s role in supporting Melburnians at their most vulnerable.

The new RMH brand is a more cohesive, human-focused brand that reflects the Hospital’s reputation as a science-driven network of excellence that’s focused on advancing health for everyone. With the support and contribution of employees, the brand also reflects what the organisation is today and what they want to be in future.