The Forever Reef Project

The world's first living coral biobank facility. A home for the most precious collection on Earth.

The Forever Reef Project aims to preserve hard coral species' genetic biodiversity by cataloguing, collecting, and storing living fragments, tissue, and genetic samples in a ‘coral ark’. Partnering with Great Barrier Reef Legacy, this initiative is pivotal for global coral biodiversity preservation. It's not just a short-term campaign but a vital, long-term biodiversity initiative. Immediate action is crucial to gather coral before the next bleaching event, enhancing its future value as a sustainability asset in high demand by scientific communities, researchers, and companies investing in biodiversity and carbon credits.

Great Barrier Reef Legacy: The Forever Reef Project

The creative work…

Disaster narratives to do with the climate are good at attracting attention but not so good at motivating genuine personal engagement or behaviour change. We wanted to make sure people could feel hopeful about the future of the reef because this is the project that can actually provide it. There is no more research to be done. We wanted to be clear that we know how to do this. We’re already doing it.

We named this project ‘The Forever Reef’ because it’s the outcome of this project in its most distilled form. It’s powerful because it’s the opposite of what we hear about reefs. The idea that reefs will be able to live forever is something that many would find hard to believe in the current environmental landscape. It’s disruptive language and demands scrutiny because it’s not alarmist.

We’ve developed a visual identity that represents fragments coming together to form the typography as powerful symbolism of the collection. We developed this with organic elements, hand drawing each letterform. The language of ‘Join us to complete the most precious collection on Earth’. Join us is a call to arms. The most precious is the value, collection is the what and Earth is the scale.

We’ve utilised the true infrastructure elements of the biobank across our design system. The ultraviolet colour palette and the dramatic lighting while the key visual of the collection at first glance looks like a case of precious jewels.

We even held a panel discussion at the Inaugural SXSW in Sydney featuring Dr Charlie Veron, Dr Dean Miller, Ben Cooper and myself.

We were also featured in The Australian Growth Agenda.