Visual identity for the Material Matters 02 exhibition as part of the NGV’s Melbourne Design Week, Australia’s largest annual festival of the discipline.

What does a more circular and sustainable future look like, and how do we create for better? This was the subject of Material Matters 02, an exhibition held in 2024 during Melbourne Design Week exploring the development and application of sustainable materials for retail spaces.

It offered an overview of materialities at various stages of innovation, from conceptual ideas to solutions that are ready for commercial use, and highlighted the work of architects, designers, and makers who are contributing to giving our built environment a lighter ecological footprint. Nexus Designs partnered with Design Futures Lab and students from Sacred Heart College to create a bio-based material from spent coffee grounds and natural binding agents as part of the show aimed at disrupting the narrative of ‘buy, produce, dispose’ through innovative future thinking.

The studio also designed the visual identity and promotional campaign for Material Matters 02, the second annual iteration of the exhibition which was presented by BETA by STH BNK. Art direction tends to the gritty and unrefined, reflecting the unfinished and shifting possibilities of future worlds. Typography is bold, stacked and industrial and colours embrace the dynamic BETA palette of black, white, grey and its iconic ‘Hyper’ yellow, with an iridescent gradient applied to imagery. A simple bold logomark represents a mirrored M, capturing the necessary introspection required for future thinking, coupled with an equally prominent 02 to represent the return of the inaugural exhibition the previous year.

Beulah Australia
BETA BY STHBANK

Visual Identity
Campaign Creative
Graphic Design
Digital Design

Niel Prieto Photography
Atelier Co-presenter
Ella Saddington Exhibition Curator

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