CLIENT
AVJennings
VERTICALS
Consulting + Studio
SEGMENT
Masterplanned community
LOCATION
Clyde North, VIC
YEAR
2023
/01
THE BRIEF
Re-entering a corridor on a 90-year reputation alone wasn't going to work.
AVJennings hadn't released a community in Melbourne's southeast corridor for close to fifteen years. The corridor had moved on. Re-entering on a 90-year reputation alone wasn't going to work.
The brief was to launch Somerford. The real problem was bigger – re-introduce AVJennings to a market that had largely forgotten it was there.
/02
APPROACH
Lead with the name the corridor already knows.
The instinct in a situation like this is to lead with the new community brand and let the parent sit quietly in the corner. We argued the opposite. The corridor wouldn’t recognise Somerford. It would recognise AVJennings. So we positioned it as AVJennings Somerford – not Somerford by AVJennings. The masterbrand does the introducing. The community brand earns its place over time.
The visual identity solved a second problem: master-planned communities run for four to five years before sell-out. The brand needs to keep saying new things without losing itself. Somerford sits on a former horse breeding and polo field – we made that history the visual foundation. A fixed wordmark and ranch-style mark anchor the identity. A kit of horse silhouettes, designed to evolve, carries each new chapter: release stages, community milestones, campaign moments. The kit grows; the brand stays coherent.
Because we were AVJennings’ embedded team, we stayed with Somerford past launch – through the sales centre, the digital brochure, and the campaign extensions. The Brandie Award recognised the full system, not just the logo.
/04
OUTCOME
AVJennings came back to the corridor with a brand the market noticed.
AVJennings Somerford led with the masterbrand and let the community brand earn its place. The system carried every release stage without losing coherence, held steady sales through the corridor’s toughest selling years, and took the 2024 Brandie Award for Best Brand Campaign – international recognition inside twelve months of launch.
Int'l
RECOGNITION WITHIN 12 MONTHS
Steady
SALES – AVJENNINGS ANNUAL REPORT
“
This brand is exactly what the corridor needs to stand out. It’s spot on – everything about this is absolutely stunning.
– HEAD OF SALES, AVJENNINGS SOMERFORD
Brand-architecture decisions are made early and lived with for years.
We're worth talking to before the name is locked, not after.
NEXT PROJECT
AVJennings Website →
WEBSITE · CONSULTING + STUDIO