What happens to the brands that time forgot: the ones that once held meaning, 

memory, or momentum, but faded into obscurity? Can they be remembered, 

reimagined, reborn across new cultural landscapes? 

Set against a cross-cultural backdrop, this studio invites students to explore forgotten 

or defunct institutions and rebrand them for contemporary audiences. Students will 

relaunch these brands in a different cultural region, developing strategic, research driven, and visually coherent branding systems that respond to the complexities of 

cultural translation and reinterpretation. 

This studio engages with cultural branding, design anthropology, and identity systems. 

Students will examine defunct or forgotten brands - such as Holden, Blockbuster, HTC 

and Minolta; and explore their original cultural contexts, semiotics, and decline. The 

studio foregrounds research-led design and branding theory, encouraging students to 

investigate brand memory, nostalgia, and speculative futures. 

Students will reimagine how these “lost” brands could be meaningfully revived and 

repositioned for a different cultural audience. The studio also integrates retrofuturism 

and cross-cultural branding strategies to challenge students to design beyond trend 

and toward culturally responsive design outcomes. 

Students will demonstrate learning through applied research, brand analysis, and 

speculative rebranding proposals. They will produce a research report analysing the 

historical, cultural, and semiotic context of a selected brand; create a full brand 

identity system and campaign for its relaunch in a new cultural region; and document 

their reflection and design process in a Studio Knowledge Object (SKO). Peer critiques 

and iterative feedback will be used to refine strategic and visual outcomes across the 

semester. 

Students will engage in branding workshops, strategy sprints, and guest lectures from 

branding professionals. Research will include archival brand analysis, audience 

profiling, and cross-cultural comparisons. Visual identity workshops will cover logotype development, motion branding, and retrofuturist visual language. 

Critiques and one-on-one consultations will guide development. Potential industry 

excursions (e.g. to the Design Archives or commercial branding studios) will 

contextualise professional practice. Final outcomes will be presented in a studio 

showcase of brand book and campaign presentation, with potential features through 

RMIT platforms or collaborations with design publications. 

This studio includes three assessment tasks: 

B1. Studio Knowledge Object (SKO) – 30% 

A printed or digital artefact reflecting the student’s design thinking, process, and critical 

reflection across the semester. 

B2. Brand Research Report – 30% 

A visual and written report analysing the chosen brand’s origin, cultural context, failure 

or dormancy, and potential for reintroduction into a new culture. 

B3. Brand Relaunch Identity & Campaign – 40% 

A full identity redesign and advertising campaign for the selected “lost brand,” 

repositioned for a different cultural audience.