For The Ethics Centre, Glider is a great deal more than a communications strategy or design agency: they have their heads thoroughly inside our organisation and are more a strategic partner who genuinely cares about supporting us to create real impact in the world. The growth of our audience since we began working together, in size and depth of engagement, has been exponential. Feedback from our supporters about our communications has been overwhelmingly positive. Glider’s input has been integral to our increased reach and impact.

Glider are always ready with a solution; always calm and measured in response to demands, always attentive; conscientious and meticulous regarding detail. They manage to imbue all our communications with optimism and elegance, without betraying the serious nature of the issues at the core of our work. If The Ethics Centre were a yacht, Glider would be our winged keel.

The Ethics Centre has had the benefit of a long working relationship with Glider. We are currently eight years on from a transformative brand project that resulted in not only a new name and logo but also a whole new system for how we talk about our work and our purpose. This framework has elevated how we communicate with audiences and potential funders, produced a unique and recognisable brand, and given us a solid platform from which to continue to grow into the future.

Glider’s work is always considered, well resolved and, frankly, beautiful – it’s a pleasure to work with the multi-skilled team across digital, event and print executions.

In the five years that Glider have been working with The Ethics Centre, they’ve been many things to us. They have acted as strategic consultants, designers, copywriters, video producers and website builders. They’ve guided us through the process of re-naming (and re-branding) our organisation. They’ve helped us craft our fundraising message, including a Case for Support, and to refine the voice with which we communicate to members via our annual reports. They’ve been our innovation partner as we’ve developed new tools and approaches, new ways of working. They have inspired us to bring our events to life.

Glider is the sum of these parts, but also more. From the moment we started working with them, they saw the potential of The Ethics Centre. They had a vision for what we could be even when we sometimes struggled to see it ourselves. One step at a time, over dozens of different projects, they have helped us to realise our future.

If The Ethics Centre described Glider like a friend they’d be the friend who simply walks alongside you and listens when you’ve hit a dead end; the friend who always manages to bring the ‘Ahah!’ moment that unlocks a solution for those most intractable life problems; the friend who mucks in with paint brushes and rollers while compassionately pointing out that the colour palette you’ve chosen, while ‘nice,’ may be better with some ’tweaks’ – and when needed, the only friend who can tell you ‘it’s a knock down and rebuild,’ while putting on the overalls to show the way to do it; and the friend who not only lends you their ute to help with an urgent move, but will turn up at 5am, behind the wheel, with a couple of their mates, a coffee in hand for you, to help with the last minute heavy lifting.

For The Ethics Centre, Glider has been not only our Strategic Innovation Partner but our ‘bestie.’ Together, we are greater than the sum of our parts.

Since 2014, Glider has produced several very large and challenging digital platforms 
 for us which have been the most successful projects in the Institute’s history – each of them visually beautiful and highly functional. The team are extremely professional; they are quick to understand and grasp briefs, they are undaunted by intangible concepts and projects of very broad scope. They develop proposals which are ambitious, but true 
 to the brief, and are highly responsive and easy to work with. They work at the leading edge of their field, and are proactive in suggesting new approaches and innovative ideas. Glider has become our partner of choice.

I first started working with Glider in 2016, and since then they have played an integral role in Lowy Institute’s digital transformation and the creation of our flagship digital projects. From the Asia Power Index to the Global Diplomacy Index and Pacific Aid Map, Glider has consistently helped us bring our data to life through compelling digital platforms and data visualisations.

They take the time to get to know our work and our goals, and then use that knowledge to develop solutions that are tailored to our specific requirements and meet the needs of our audiences. This level of personalised service is something that is rare in the digital design world, and it has made a huge difference in the success of our projects.

This level of support has made it easy for us to work with them and has contributed to the success of our partnership and the reach and impact of our projects. The talented and dedicated Glider team has consistently delivered high-quality results for us, 
 and I would highly recommend them to anyone in need of digital transformation and data visualisation services.

Glider has been a fantastic partner for us in the data visualisation space. We commissioned them to work with us on a major data project of an ambition that had never been tried before. With very few precedents, and considering the complexities of aid and development landscape, I was surprised and impressed with how the team brought the abstract vision to life, making critical contributions to the experience and design that have made the final product so worthwhile.

The product was not without its challenges, as in many ways we were building the plane as we were flying it – collecting and synthesising the data at the same time as we were developing the interactive. Nevertheless, Glider hit the strict deadline on time and within budget, and the feedback of the product from every angle has been overwhelmingly positive. The final product far exceeds our expectations.

We reached out to Glider after seeing their work with the Lowy Institute, which demonstrated to us that they clearly had the skills and the vision we needed to develop our Reef Life Explorer tool. From our first meeting with Glider to discuss options, we were immediately excited to work with them – not only because of the skills Glider could bring to our project, but also their passion, ideas and commitment to the cause. Unlike the local developers we originally approached to scope the work, Glider brought so much more to the table than just the code, working with us to bring our data to life in a visually stunning, impactful way. From the get-go, they were more like partners on the project than simply contractors for some development work.

The Reef Life Explorer (RLE) we developed with Glider is already driving changes in the attitudes and activities of government agencies here in Australia, with national and state departments inviting us to give presentations and demos, and Marine Protected Area management agencies requesting more reef monitoring to allow their jurisdictions to be represented. But the RLE is also built to be totally scalable, and it will continue to grow in importance and impact globally, feeding on the data streams from our expanding networks of committed divers around the world.

We are very glad to have found Glider. It is difficult to effectively communicate how high our opinion of them is, but we could only start by saying we are inspired and very much admire what they do and appreciate their contribution to our organisation and growing our positive impact on marine biodiversity knowledge, management and conservation.

On behalf of E3G, we wanted to extend a huge thanks to Glider for all the effort and time put towards E3G’s centre for political economy of climate change, and the collaboration to create the Climate Transformation Hub over the last year, and for the intense work to bring everything together for our community launch.
It was a great feat of creativity and project management bringing together the strategy, the platform, the first products and the event. It’s been a real pleasure working with the team to iterate and collaborate – and I really appreciate the way in which they engaged in a deep way with the thinking and the vision and brought in new dimensions and thinking.

We are so excited to have this out in the world marking our space and highlighting its value and need to the climate community. We met our objectives for this milestone and through the combined efforts, have started many conversations, including with potential funders, and prepped the stage well for future engagement in the coming months so a great achievement indeed! This is very much the beginning of a series of engagements and platform build-out into next year and beyond – we look forward to the continued creative partnership, their expert guidance and feedback!

This is the third Festival of Dangerous Ideas that we’ve partnered with the multiskilled team at Glider. They worked with us to reimagine and relaunch the brand when we moved from the Sydney Opera House to its new location at Cockatoo Island after a 2 year hiatus. Supported by a considered audience migration strategy, the refreshed brand stayed true to its roots while providing the renewed energy needed to successfully bring audiences across to The Ethics Centre. Each subsequent year the brand has continued to evolve in line with its locations – Cockatoo Island, Town Hall and Carriageworks – to generate buzz, drive interest and ticket sales, and keep the brand feeling edgy and fresh. The FODI brand has become so recognisable.

In 2022, we were faced with the added challenge of coming out of COVID lockdowns and getting people back to live events. The brand campaign nailed the gritty punk aesthetic we wanted to convey and reminded people what it’s like being together.

The addition of participatory installations creating spaces for conversation has also been a large part of what Glider has done superbly for FODI, not only helping to bring the public areas to life but providing a feed of ideas for online content that creates an opportunity for ongoing dialogue with audiences throughout the year.

 

The ABC’s Innovation Lab worked with Glider on a project to explore the ABC of 2032 and how we might get there. Staff, industry leaders, next generation creatives and innovators were brought together for Futurecast, to look beyond the day-to-day to imagine what might be possible. Each of the five events featured a mix of keynote talks, moderated panel discussions and interviews, and scenario-based group work.
We collaborated with Glider from Futurecast’s conception through to planning and delivery, including on the structure and activities, event concept, name + positioning, branding, collateral and experiential design.

At every stage of the process the Glider team were creative, enthusiastic and highly collaborative. They were deeply interested and very engaged throughout the process.

A range of staff from all levels of the ABC attended Futurecast, with many sharing enthusiastic and positive feedback. Futurecast forged new connections across the organisation, and delivered important insights to the team responsible for developing the ABC’s next five-year plan.

The ABC Innovation Lab partnered with Glider on Futurecast 2032, a forward-looking event in ABC’s 90th year. Glider immediately understood what we were trying to achieve and engaged deeply with the substance of the day.

Glider’s approach considered all aspects of the experience, from the invitation through to the impact of walking through the doors, as well as the day flow, speakers and encompassing visual design. The Glider team are creative, innovative and always willing to go above and beyond to make sure the project is a success and creatively keeps within budget.

The result of their work was a dynamic full-day event in an off-site location. The considered and memorable design immediately engaged staff, with interactive installations and experiences that prompted important conversation and captured new ideas, and evocative future trends and scenario sessions that immersed audiences in future worlds. The feedback from attendees was that the event exceeded their expectations and was like nothing they had attended before.

Futurecast was designed in a way that meant we could roll it out in other locations throughout Australia over the following months, with a Futurecast Futuring Kit, also written and created by Glider, that consolidated the experience into a flexible framework for future thinking. This enabled us to gain valuable insights into ABC’s innovation strategy for the years to come. We are now working with Glider on the next iteration of Futurecast, Futurecast 2.0 this time a public-facing industry event, to continue building a community of innovators and a culture of positive change from within the organisation.

Glider Global partnered with the Australian National University in developing the digital platform What Australia Thinks, creating an engaging publicly-available resource that brings together social research findings to show Australia’s shifting attitudes on a wide range of issues.

One of the keys to the success of the platform has been the effort and expertise that Glider brought in understanding user needs and designing a user experience that would connect with all of our diverse audiences. Glider created an interactive website that ensured important research findings were accessible and widely available.

Glider Global is highly professional and highly responsive across all mediums of communication and interactions. They imagined and delivered a digital platform that exceeded our expectations.

Eternityland was a multi-pronged new immersive work of huge scale and required multiple brands to be created to help the world-building of this 10 week epic takeover of an iconic site in Barangaroo. Glider’s experience of connecting brands within brands and ability to deliver really strong creative that cuts through so much online noise, was key to the success of this project, as we were starting from scratch! No database or content to build from, just an idea! They helped develop the brand and creative rollout, with particular attention to social media, to engage audiences and convert them into ticket buyers.

They built intrigue in the lead up and then swung in behind to cover promotion of the actual experience and amplify the content made by creators, performers and audience. They really nailed the aesthetic we needed to come out of the gate and became key creative partners on Eternityland. The attention to detail, care and dedication to the project was incredible and we would work with them again in a heartbeat!

Glider has a deep understanding of our organisation’s vision, and shares our commitment to creating meaningful social change through art. Throughout the process, Glider had the rare ability to look beyond ‘the parts’ to ‘the whole’, bringing a focused and contemporary perspective to our work and helping us to clearly define our place in the cultural landscape. This perspective has also helped us think more strategically about how we can create multiple levels of opportunity for our project partners.

Glider has equipped us with a robust platform that is geared for growth, supporting us to continually innovate and inspire. They have helped us extend our reach, and opened the door to new opportunities and possibilities.

A New Approach (ANA) is thrilled with the outcome of our first collaboration with Glider to transform our fact-filled research and analysis into an adaptable, interactive three-dimensional website, which is more user-friendly for our diverse audiences. With their design skills, intuitive understanding of our mission as Australia’s leading arts and culture think tank, and a flexible approach to the project, the team at Glider breathed new life into The Big Picture research series. They took our analysis of 14 years of data examining how Australian governments fund cultural activity and transformed it into a bold, dynamic platform that is as engaging for cultural policy nerds as it is for curious newcomers to the creative industries.

Glider did a wonderful job translating our vision into a narrative, with the team showing us the possibilities available to share our work in new ways. Glider were agile and resourceful when faced with some obstacles at our end and worked with us to keep the project on track. We look forward to working with Glider again in the future.

Glider has been a fantastic partner for us in designing experiential and participatory futures. We first worked with them to develop the Future Work Archive, an immersive experience based on the four scenarios the RSA had developed for the future of work.

The Archive consisted of displays of real and speculative objects that would be lost or found in each of the different possible futures. This helped to bring our scenarios to life alongside foresight workshops in a way that encouraged curiosity and exploration, revealing the underlying values and tensions to make people question which future they want.

It is always a pleasure working with Glider. Their staff excel at facilitating a process that harnesses creative ideas from across the RSA team.
I cannot understate the impact that working with Glider has had on my own practice, expanding the way we think about futures and foresight at the RSA, and injecting creativity into our approach.

Since 2016, the School of System Change has collaborated with Glider on various projects to create learning resources in the systems change field. The projects were challenging, involving complex concepts and frameworks, and stories across the field of systems change, and translating them into engaging, accessible and useful resources for practitioners. What’s unique about their approach is their ability to show up at every stage of the project- from bouncing ideas, through to strategic advice, project design, a strong vision and a truly exceptional bunch of design and interaction skills. Luckily for us the Glider team holds a similar way of looking at the world – one that is systemic – and share a passion for supporting change-makers to be and work in this way.

Our most recent project, Stepping Into Systems, a three-part film series exploring fundamental topics of systems change was every bit as complex, messy and ambitious as ever, and Glider navigated us through challenging parts of this work. The films are fantastic, and it would never have become what they did without their contributions. At the School we aspire to cultivate systemic ways of thinking, acting and being, emphasising a shift in worldview and understanding of how the world works, and this film series explores these themes beautifully, incorporating many ways of knowing and allowing viewers to grasp the systemic parts of themselves. The sensory elements of the films – visual, auditory, and movement – contribute to a transformative learning experience beyond mere knowledge transfer.

Collaborating with the Glider team is a joyful and ambitious journey, and we eagerly anticipate future projects together.

Glider has a way of getting under the skin of the organisation they are working with and respond to briefs in a unique and creative way. The work produced often challenges, but always has merit and is always looking to build on the organisation’s strategic framework. Be ready to be have your preconceptions for any project you work with Glider pushed into exciting and new realms!

Glider has been integral to AODP’s positioning since its inception in 2009. It isn’t just the quality and implementation of communications work that Glider delivers but the fact it is totally integrated into the AODP business strategy before any project is even started. The ultimate test isn’t our own opinion of course but our partners, our market and our investors continually comment on the presentation of AODP’s products and their superior communication. It is this communications which has helped AODP to become the world leader in its field. To know that every project’s impact will meet the world head on thanks to Glider’s genius is a comfort to all organisations and the ongoing support levels have also been excellent. My fear is that the world will start to realise the Glider magic and that everyone will start to catch us up.

We were keen for a fresh approach to get people thinking about energy efficiency, and engaged Glider to help us refine and shape our project so it could be as full and effective as possible. The team delivered a distinctive brand architecture and engagement strategy for our project, and taught us how to build connection and relevance for our project. They served more as a partner and mentor than a consultant, showing us how to inspire, surprise and connect with our audience. We more than doubled our anticipated audience reach and engagement in the project. We feel very lucky to have worked with such an amazing team and we wouldn’t hesitate in recommending Glider for projects that need to make a difference.