Ian Cook
Young Actuaries Conference Actuarial Sprint app banner
Actuarial Sprint event flyer App onboarding screens ERM 2017 event identity
Young Actuaries Conference 2017 GI Glimpse event Bank magazine ad Big Data See What We See campaign

The Actuaries Institute

Role Digital Media Specialist, later Brand and Content Manager
Year 2016–2018
Scope Brand, Video, Motion Graphics, Events

The Actuaries Institute is the professional body for actuaries in Australia. I joined as a Digital Media Specialist in 2016 and was promoted to Brand and Content Manager — covering brand, graphic design, video, motion graphics, and content marketing strategy across the Institute's web properties.

One of the defining features of the role was the audience: actuaries work across insurance, finance, superannuation, and consulting, at every career stage. That diversity shaped how we worked — content had to be targeted and dynamic, tailored to where someone sat within the membership rather than broadcast to everyone the same way.

Actuarial Sprint App

At short notice, I was tasked with creating the branding and marketing collateral for Actuarial Sprint, a new app aimed at actuarial students. The logo had to stay close to the Institute's master triangle — a few early iterations strayed too far, and I pulled them back, applying a gradient to a rounded triangle version that kept the connection to the parent brand while feeling fresher and less formal. I followed that with onboarding screen imagery, promo videos, web graphics, and print flyers for university and college events.

Events branding

A core responsibility was producing identities for the Institute's major annual events. I moved away from the static stock imagery that had been the default — developing adaptable graphic shapes that could flex across multiple touchpoints and actually reflect each event's themes rather than just decorate them.

Big Data Campaign

In late 2016, the Institute released a Green Paper on Big Data and its impact on the insurance industry, tied to the major 'See What We See' campaign. I played several roles across the rollout: art direction for the Green Paper itself, web layout, and leading the production of four short contributor videos explaining the key themes. For the broader campaign, we partnered with Ogilvy — I managed that relationship, working with them on the creative and advertising elements alongside the in-house work.

It was the Institute's most successful paper launch — the largest print run of any paper they'd produced, with more activity around it than any previous release. And their most visually accomplished.

Logo animation

The first thing I made at the Institute, and ultimately the most used. Video content was growing with no consistent branding applied to it — I spotted the gap and produced a short ident in After Effects to bookend every video being made. Simple, but the kind of thing that compounds quietly across everything that comes after it.