Pentridge Prison Tours
A brand identity and platform for the infamous Pentridge Prison.
Services —
- Branding
- Communications
- Web Design & Development
Industries —
- Arts & Culture
- Government & Community
The National Trust Victoria engaged Your Creative to reimagine the brand identity for Pentridge Prison Tours, a cultural and historical offering within the redeveloped Pentridge Precinct in Melbourne. Once a place of confinement, the site had transformed into a mixed-use precinct featuring retail, hospitality, and public art. The tours needed a renewed brand to reflect this new chapter, balancing heritage with contemporary cultural relevance.
Rebuilding awareness —
Following decades of closure, Pentridge’s legacy was at risk of being sensationalised as “dark tourism.” The challenge was to rebuild awareness of the tours in a way that respected the prison’s past while inviting new audiences—from students to international visitors—to engage with it as a cultural and educational experience.
Positioning for reflection —
We undertook a research-led, consultative process with the National Trust and design collaborators Art Processors. This included site immersion, stakeholder workshops, and strategic framing to shift the tours away from spectacle and towards dialogue, curiosity, and reflection. The strategy ensured alignment with the broader precinct’s cultural programming, positioning Pentridge as a space for storytelling and learning.
“We needed to find a link between Pentridge’s past and its future. The Panopticon became that bridge, as an artefact of isolation reinterpreted into a symbol of collaboration.”
Anthony Pellegrino —
Lead Designer
Architecture as identity —
Within Pentridge, the Panopticon was a prominent and unique feature of the prison. Archaeologists unearthed its remains during restoration, once used to isolate prisoners. As part of the new tours, the Panopticon was reimagined as a reflection garden; a space for dialogue and collaboration.
Stripping this form back into vector art created the base for the new brand concept. The Panopticon became both a literal and symbolic anchor for the identity, bridging the site’s past with its future as a cultural and educational precinct.
“We worked closely with Art Processors to integrate the new identity seamlessly across the audio tour experience, ensuring design and storytelling worked in unison.”
— James Lim, Creative Director
Extending place through digital —
The web design echoed elements of the space itself, incorporating motifs from the prison’s architecture and embedding them into a mobile-first interface. This created a cohesive journey: visitors could explore Pentridge online, plan their visit, and then encounter the brand woven into the physical and audio experience once onsite.
