Gender and Disaster Australia and Storyfolk have been awarded Gold at the Melbourne Design Awards . The award recognises a brand identity that is helping transform how Australia understands disaster resilience, inclusion, and the gendered impacts of emergencies.

This recognition celebrates more than a brand identity. It celebrates a shared commitment to making complex issues easier to understand, strengthening conversations around disaster preparedness and recovery, and creating a platform for meaningful systems change.

Branding the hidden realities behind every disaster

For years, Gender and Disaster Australia has been working to uncover a reality that is often overlooked: disasters are not experienced equally. Every disaster leaves behind visible damage. But some of the most significant impacts remain unseen. When communities experience bushfires, floods, droughts, storms, or other emergencies, existing inequalities can become more severe. Gendered expectations, social roles, economic inequality, and experiences of violence can influence:

• Who is most at risk.
• Who can access support.
• Who is able to recover.
• Whose experiences are recognised in decision-making.

Gender and Disaster Australia exists to ensure these realities are understood and considered. This helps create more informed, inclusive, and effective approaches to disaster resilience.

The challenge: reflecting a national leader

As Gender and Disaster Australia’s influence continued to grow, its existing identity no longer reflected the scale, authority, and impact of its work. The organisation was increasingly shaping conversations across government, emergency services, researchers, councils, community organisations, and disaster recovery sectors. Yet its brand needed to better communicate the depth of its expertise. It also needed to remain accessible to diverse audiences and claim its rightful seat at the table.

The opportunity was clear: How could a brand translate complex research, lived experience, and systemic issues into a clear, bold, and recognisable platform for change?

Together, Gender and Disaster Australia and Storyfolk explored how design could help bridge the gap between evidence and action.

Building a brand through shared knowledge and lived experience

The project was shaped through a collaborative discovery and co-design process. It brought together insights from Gender and Disaster Australia’s leadership, team, board members, emergency management professionals, researchers, stakeholders, and community partners. This process revealed a shared ambition: to create a brand that could challenge power imbalances without alienating, communicate difficult truths with care, and balance credibility with humanity. It also needed to highlight the breadth of their work.

The result was an identity system built around the strategic platform and tagline:

Gendered Insight. Policy Action. Disaster Resilience.

This captures Gender and Disaster Australia’s role in connecting research, advocacy, and practical action to create safer and more equitable disaster responses.

A collaboration grounded in purpose

For Storyfolk Creative Director Sarah Gross, the project was about far more than creating a new identity.

“The most powerful brands are built around ideas that deserve to be seen, understood, and acted upon. Gender and Disaster Australia’s work challenges us to look beyond the immediate event of a disaster. It asks us to understand the deeper social factors that shape how people prepare for, experience, and recover from crisis. Our role was to create a brand that could carry this complexity with both authority and empathy… and something people could trust.”

Sarah also reflected on the partnership behind the project.

“Working alongside Dr Margaret Moreton and the entire Gender and Disaster Australia team was a genuine privilege. From my first conversation with Margaret, I just knew we were going to create something special. This recognition celebrates not only our collaboration, but equally so the many researchers, practitioners, policymakers, emergency services professionals, and community voices who helped shape a more informed and equitable disaster response system.”

For Gender and Disaster Australia CEO Dr Margaret Moreton, the success of the project came from a shared understanding of the organisation’s purpose.

“The team at Storyfolk combined exceptional creativity with genuine strategic expertise, making the entire branding process thought provoking and collaborative. They quickly earned our trust and delivered a brand identity that not only captures who we are but has also strengthened our market positioning and provided a clear platform for future growth.”

Making invisible impacts visible: the thinking behind the identity

At the centre of the identity is a symbol created through the intersection of two circles, representing the relationship between gender and disaster.

The concept reflects a fundamental principle behind Gender and Disaster Australia’s work. When gender and disaster are viewed separately, important impacts can remain invisible. By bringing these perspectives together, deeper understanding becomes possible. The expanding forms represent influence moving outward  from lived experience and research, through to policy reform, sector leadership, and long-term systemic change. The identity was not created as a static brand system. Instead, it was designed as adaptable infrastructure to support Gender and Disaster Australia’s growing national role.

The system now supports:

• National training programs.
• Policy reports and research publications.
• Conferences and sector events.
• Advocacy campaigns.
• Digital communications.
• Community engagement initiatives.

The visual language balances authority and accessibility combining structured typography and clarity with a warmer, more human visual expression.

A brand supporting real-world change

Since launch, the rethought branding has strengthened Gender and Disaster Australia’s ability to communicate its research, build partnerships, and support action across sectors.

A key example is Lessons in Disaster, Gender and Disaster Australia’s training program. It has engaged more than 2,600 participants across Australia, supporting emergency services, local governments, health organisations, and disaster recovery agencies to better understand and implement gender-responsive approaches.

Gold recognition for a shared vision

Winning Gold at the Melbourne Design Awards is a celebration of what can happen when strategy, expertise, collaboration, and design come together.

For Gender and Disaster Australia, this recognition reflects the importance of making complex issues visible. It also ensures critical conversations about disaster resilience reach the people who can create change.

For Storyfolk, it reinforces our belief that the most meaningful brands do more than communicate. They help organisations create impact.

We are incredibly proud to have partnered with Gender and Disaster Australia and grateful for the trust placed in us throughout this journey. Thank you to the entire team. Onwards and upwards.

Read the Gender and Disaster case study in full here. 

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