Crown
MAUD, 2023
Crown has defined Australian luxury since 1975. Hotels, restaurants, retail, gaming, for nearly five decades it has been the country's most recognisable entertainment resort. Following its 2022 acquisition by Blackstone, the question was no longer how to maintain that reputation, but how to make it relevant to an audience that had grown up largely unaware of it.
The challenge was generational. A new cohort of 20 to 45-year-olds needed a reason to see Crown not as their parents' destination, but as their own.
The answer was restraint. Rather than doubling down on the maximalist language that had defined the brand, we pursued something more contemporary, more considered. Discrete markers of quality replaced overt displays of it. The work pushed back against the assumption that luxury must announce itself, in favour of a confidence that doesn't need to.
The refresh reframed Crown not as an institution to be impressed by, but as a place of open-ended possibility, somewhere unexpected, a little playful, and entirely on your terms.
To bring Crown's calendar of events to life, we collaborated with 3D artist Mr P. on a suite of renders that embodied exactly that spirit. Weird, wonderful, and unlike anything in Crown's visual history, they gave the brand a genuinely distinctive and memorable presence in culture, and signalled clearly that something had changed.
Completed while Executive Creative Director at MAUD, alongside Tom Clayton, Lachlan Richard, Ricky New, Tomas Sabbatucci and Peter Citroni. Photography by Simon Eels, renders by Mr P, typeface by Margot Lévêque, logo redrawn by Dave Foster.