Page 44 - Adnews magazine Sep-Oct 2022

Feature
Hulsbosch Turns 40
Hans Hulsbosch, founder and executive creative director at Hulsbosch, highlights how the industry has changed over the decades.
Sydney-based Hulsbosch in October celebrates its 40th anniversary as a leading corporate brand and design agency.
Over the decades
the agency has cre-
ated and rejuve-
nated thousands of
Australia’s most
loved brand identities and global corporate leaders from designing the Seven Network and Football Australia’s logos to 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 direc- tor marketing at Woolworths, com- menting on Hulsbosch’s logo rede- sign 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.”
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 he 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 real- ised 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 creating the airline’s flying kangaroo logo. An update in 2007 led to a Cannes Lion.
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 com- pany’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 pro- cess. 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 sub- sequent 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.”
WORDS BY
ASHLEY REGAN
Top Right: Hans Hulsbosch.
www.adnews.com.au | September - October 2022 44