West SpaceOnsite offline. Offsite online.

Rethinking the white cube gallery as a Rubik’s cube

West Space is a vital non-profit, artist-led organization in Melbourne, Australia, focused on supporting local and underrepresented artists at all stages of their careers. Base worked with the West Space team to evolve their brand identity, and develop a new digital platform that extends their art and ideas beyond the gallery space (while we were all stuck at home!). This involved close collaboration and heaps of trust, since the majority of the process played out over Zoom.

Since its inception, West Space has challenged definition and championed diversity, creative freedom, and risk-taking. So early on we realized we needed to avoid a style-guide-driven approach to branding, in favor of developing a visual language over time.

This began with a strong foundation; a new industrious condensed sans-serif typeface inspired by scaffolding. Its exaggerated punctuation provides the organization a distinctive visual language, while a unique set of symbols / emojis ties to its program. Operating as a metaphor for the role the gallery plays in supporting Australian artists and their work, it also acts as the scaffolding of the brand. A platform upon which to experiment and build.

Upon this foundation we built West Space Offsite: a new digital platform rapidly developed during Melbourne’s COVID lockdown to enable publishing artist-led content online. Sitting both beside and beyond West Space’s physical exhibition program, it extends art and ideas outside of the gallery space.

Coinciding with a move into a new physical gallery space in Collingwood Yards – an independent not-for-profit social enterprise – our work marks a new chapter in the West Space story. But it’s far from over. We’re continuing our collaboration with a comprehensive website refresh launching soon.

West Space is a vital non-profit, artist-led organization in Melbourne, Australia, focused on supporting local and underrepresented artists at all stages of their careers. Base worked with the West Space team to evolve their brand identity, and develop a new digital platform that extends their art and ideas beyond the gallery space (while we were all stuck at home!). This involved close collaboration and heaps of trust, since the majority of the process played out over Zoom.

Since its inception, West Space has challenged definition and championed diversity, creative freedom, and risk-taking. So early on we realized we needed to avoid a style-guide-driven approach to branding, in favor of developing a visual language over time.

This began with a strong foundation; a new industrious condensed sans-serif typeface inspired by scaffolding. Its exaggerated punctuation provides the organization a distinctive visual language, while a unique set of symbols / emojis ties to its program. Operating as a metaphor for the role the gallery plays in supporting Australian artists and their work, it also acts as the scaffolding of the brand. A platform upon which to experiment and build.

Upon this foundation we built West Space Offsite: a new digital platform rapidly developed during Melbourne’s COVID lockdown to enable publishing artist-led content online. Sitting both beside and beyond West Space’s physical exhibition program, it extends art and ideas outside of the gallery space.

Coinciding with a move into a new physical gallery space in Collingwood Yards – an independent not-for-profit social enterprise – our work marks a new chapter in the West Space story. But it’s far from over. We’re continuing our collaboration with a comprehensive website refresh launching soon.