National Art School

The National Art School (NAS) has been teaching since 1843 and has called the historic sandstone walls of the former Darlinghurst Gaol home since 1922. For over a century, it has held fast to a single, foundational idea: that artists are formed through sustained studio practice, working directly with materials under the guidance of established peers, whether in life drawing, painting, sculpture, or printmaking. As art education globally has shifted toward a digital-first, corporate model, NAS has kept faith with the studio. Its legacy lives on through generations of graduates, including Margaret Olley, Max Dupain, Wendy Sharpe, and Ken Done.

The school approached us to develop a new visual identity, brand and voice guidelines, and a redesigned website. Our task was to give clear visual form to its core convictions.

Approach

There was an easy version of this project, one where we helped a historic school feel current without saying anything. We weren’t interested in that. The school’s insistence on hands-on making and studio time isn’t nostalgia; at a moment when images are generated on demand and institutions favour theory over practice, it’s a provocation. Our job was to make that position legible.

That conviction shaped the design. Rather than starting from scratch, we looked for existing elements within the school’s language that already held meaning and gave them greater purpose, applying the same instinct to the brand that the school applies to its teaching. The final work anchors itself in the school’s role in shaping the position of art in society, built on three core commitments: putting the artist first, honouring the campus’s unique atmosphere, and affirming the value of human creativity.

Identity

The brandmark redraws the school’s name in a bolder, more contemporary typeface, giving it real weight and presence. In the previous logo, we found an L‑shaped device that had never been used. We took it and gave it a clear purpose: it frames. Used consistently across all communications, it serves as a frame for the artist and their work, mirroring the school’s role.

The identity is deliberately contemporary without being decorative. Asymmetric layouts, considered scale, and active negative space give it energy and reflect how the school actually teaches: with curiosity, conviction, and a healthy tolerance for risk.

The colour palette is drawn directly from the campus and its history: the blue of previous identities, the protest orange the school wore when marching for its independence, the buff of Sydney sandstone, the lilac of Darlinghurst jacarandas, and the green of the lawns. Typography is carried by Die Grotesk and Daily Slab, one for clarity, the other for weight. The photography stays close to the action: hands in the middle of making, students collaborating, and alums in their studios. Here, the sandstone isn’t a passive backdrop; it’s an active presence.

The verbal identity matches this energy: attentive to place, written from the artist’s perspective, and unapologetic about why art matters.

Result

The new identity champions what NAS has always valued: rigour, studio culture, and the slow, deliberate work of becoming an artist. It gives the school a presence equal to its teaching, plain about what it stands for, and not one word more.