Designed to reflect the dual nature of RMIT University – its heritage as the ‘working man’s college roots coupled with a strong technological progressiveness. Bodoni was chosen for the former and the pixelated dot was designed for the latter. Since its inception the RMIT ‘dot device’ has been used for all sorts of things (many unforeseen) including a cartoon character and a furry mascot for the institution’s open day. Although there have been a few cosmetic alterations and additions to the identity the logotype is happily still in use. The identity has been through several revisions by marketing agencies, the main changes being seen in the support typography which has changed from Bodoni to Thesis (1993) and then most recently to Museo (2008).

Little known fact: The RMIT corporate identity was designed on a Macintosh SE30. This machine sported a stunning 4 megs of RAM, 40 meg hard disc and a nine inch mono screen — as one person put it at the time it was like ‘sculpting a bus through a porthole’.