top of page

How a hyper-intelligent team made a quantum-leap in branding and used their website to restructure workflow.

SEPTEMBER 2025

QCIF

NOT FOR PROFIT

DIGITAL RESEARCH PARTNERS

In every challenge lies an opportunity. When we first met QCIF they were moving from beneath a university umbrella structure and into an independent tour- de-force. The future was bright, and so were the team. QCIF (pronounced Q-SYF) are experts in digital research. Covering a wide spread of expertise, and also having the deepest levels of experience available.

​

What struck us immediately is that despite the humbling number of PHDs, they were one of the friendliest and most modest teams we have ever met.

The brief was for a fresh website thatreflected to organisation changes, but after a fluid discussion it was clear that the opportunities were greater, and so were the challenges.

QCIF offer a multitude of digital research services (including quantum computing, research skills/training and bioinformatics). They also service 3 core industry verticals (academia, government & industry) with relevant bespoke solutions.

QCIF realised that their brand strategy and 4 brand narratives required specific expertise to distil and simplify. We brought in the leading industry experts in brand strategy (Untold®) to run a BRAD® process, ensuring we were starting with the best possible insights from the beginning. Untold® challenged the team to re-think and reposition for the next stage of brand growth, and identified areas of risk and opportunity commercially, and within existing intellectual property.

With new insights we were able to begin rebuilding the brand for the future. It was important to capitalise on the opportunities afforded by the organisational change. It was clear that QCIF could streamline and consolidate many systems into the new website platform. In doing so, not only could reduce overheads, make software redundancies, and improve transparency–we could also create a responsive and editable capability framework that evolved with the team.

Project Deliverables at a Glance

BRAND STRATEGY

BRAND NARRATIVES

NAMING & IP

BRAND IDENTITY

CONTENT STRATEGY

UX/UI

CUSTOM DEVELOPMENT

ACCESSIBILITY

ANIMATION

SEO

The new brand reflects QCIF’s renewed clarity as it

steps forward into the next chapter.

QCIF are at the technological bleeding edge and their branding needed to reflect that status. Branding in the technology space is particularly difficult as it is a saturated industry sector, and there’s a real risk of looking too similar to another brand.

Their story needs to reflect the power of 3 sector services, making the uber-complexity simple (and all in a digital first age). The icon is deceptively simple, an isometric arrangement, evocative of computer iconography, that tricks the eye into seeing a cube.

 

All the typography is custom drawn type, designed to work digitally, retain legibility, and convey a sense of order and confidence. Within the visual identity, the icon is transformed into 3 dimensions, and colour coded for their 3 sector services. In short, its simplified and smart, just like their offering. This visual brand narrative adds to the brand story, without creating weight or noise.

Image by Florian Kurrasch

A lot of websites can be really overwhelming and overcrowded for me and a lot of other ND people to read. This one is incredible, easy to read, and has such an awesome interface!

Thalia Greinke

PhD Student & Tutor at the ANU

Brand Research & Discovery (BRAD®) Process

Naming and Copywriting

Sub Brand Management

Website Features

SUMMARY OF DELIVERABLES

Research and exploration of the existing brand system. Establishing and agreeing on the future commercial strategy. Reviewing existing brand narratives and identifying the need for a new brand strategy, and aligned brand narratives.

Coining a registrable term for QCIF’s function, in a manner that ties to a system of 3s. E.g.: academia, government & industry/ discovery, innovation, impact etc. and that ties to the visual brand narrative of our new pseudo-cube brand icon.

— Digital Research3

Consolidating all 9 sub brands into a functioning and simplified visual system with accessible colour standards

  • Australia-centric, care was taken to ensure the site also met standards for international commercial requirements

  • New structure

  • Advanced system for organised content (CMS), dynamic content, making it easy to update everything

  • Clearly distinguish between the 3 market verticals (gov, academia, science), with easily filtering all the projects/ services/ capabilities

  • Dynamic skills matrix - scalable and editable with constant changes. QCIF are the first in the industry to offer this feature. Users can filter experts by area of expertise, experience and skill level

  • CMS is multirefferal. Enabling the user to see show for example which people worked on a project, similar projects, projects by different domain etc.

  • Custom training calendar and booking system (making several third party apps redundant and centralising organisation administration

  • Custom advanced conditional contact form (for different target/ capabilities own user flow and including a ticket system, which is connected to their system so automate the distribution of all the request by domains and automate it

  • Website nominated for Awwwards

bottom of page