IPSWICH LANTERN TOURS
Ipswich Lantern Tours
Services
Project Overview
Ipswich Lantern Tours is a speculative brand built for an imagined ghost tour and after-dark events business operating across historic Ipswich, Queensland. The concept centres on a simple but evocative idea — every guest carries a lantern as they move through the city's most storied locations after dark. The brief called for a brand that could hold two things at once: genuine local charm and just enough spook to make the hairs stand up.
The Challenge
Ghost tour branding is an oversaturated visual category, heavy on cliché — dripping blood, cracked typography, generic gothic horror. The challenge here was building something that felt distinctly Ipswich rather than generic Halloween, while still delivering the eerie, after-dark atmosphere the experience promises. The brand also needed a mark flexible enough to work as a full decorative lockup, a simplified app icon, and an alternate version with darker, more macabre overtones for promotional use around Halloween or specific tour types.
The Solution + Results
The identity is built around a kookaburra perched on a lantern — a piece of authentic local wildlife reframed as a slightly mysterious nighttime sentinel, watching over the lantern-lit streets. A custom script stamp typeface gives the wordmark warmth and old-world charm, evoking ink and wax rather than horror typography clichés. The colour palette leans into aged, coffee-stained paper tones paired with a rich wax-seal red, giving the whole system the feel of an old letter or treasure map rather than a haunted house flyer. An alternate logo mark — the kookaburra perched on a skull — gives the brand a sharper, more macabre option for seasonal or after-dark specific promotions, while the simplified red circle mark works cleanly as a favicon or social profile image. The supporting system includes a custom set of spooky-but-charming icons, extending the identity across tour materials, merchandise and signage.
