Futago takes the Grand Diemen for Ten Days on the Island

The 2025 visual identity for Ten Days on the Island has been awarded the Grand Diemen at the 12th annual Diemen Awards, Tasmania’s premier recognition of design excellence. Futago, the Festival’s design partner, also took home awards for Art Direction and Illustration.

The identity was built around Tasmania’s natural phenomena: bioluminescent oceans glowing under the Aurora Australis, marsupials that fluoresce under UV light. Illustrator and designer Aldous Kelly turned that starting point into a bold, playful visual world that became instantly recognisable across the island during the 2025 festival. His animated interpretation of the artwork, created using Hobart-made Procreate, brought the whole thing to life on screen.

The printed festival program, produced by Impress Print with a striking fluorescent cover, was also recognised as a finalist in the Book (offset) category. Twelve thousand brochures were distributed across the island, and they were picked up faster than distributors could put them down.

This follows the identity’s Bronze Medal at the Best Design Awards in Aotearoa New Zealand earlier in 2025, Australasia’s largest annual showcase of design excellence.

Artistic Director Marnie Karmelita: “What they delivered was vibrant, full of life, and unmistakably Tasmanian: without ever leaning into cliché.”

There’s a reason we work with Tasmanian creatives. They get this place. They get what it means to be from here. And that shows in the work. Tasmania’s creative talent is one of the things that makes this island extraordinary and if we don’t nurture it, and back the next generation coming through, we risk losing the very thing that gives us our voice.

Congratulations to the whole team.