2025

Creating a canvas for truth-telling

Yoorrook Justice Commission

CHALLENGE

The Yoorrook Justice Commission was Australia’s first formal truth-telling inquiry into historic and ongoing systemic injustices experienced by First Peoples since colonisation, led by First Peoples.

Grindstone was deeply honoured to be selected to design and lay out a suite of final reports for this landmark inquiry, based on our expertise designing Royal Commission final reports, and our experience working with First Peoples-led organisations. This included Yoorrook for Transformation, the Third Interim Report, a summary of this and Truth Be Told, the final report or official public record.

Our challenge was to create a design layout that would do justice to the content, and to help readers readily navigate the themes, evidence, testimonials, findings and recommendations.

Most of all, the reports needed to create a meaningful canvas on which truth-telling could be drawn.

Significant consideration was given to developing visual cues to support intuitive navigation, ensuring the final suite of reports was not only visually compelling but also an effective vehicle for communication.

Truth Be Told (the official public record) presented a unique challenge of genre, as a long and powerful narrative rather than a report. It required a shift in tone that spoke to its purpose as a standalone historical record, while also sitting comfortably as part of the full suite.

STRATEGY

The design of the final publications is an abstract interpretation of the Yoorrook Justice Commission’s visual identity, creating a suite of documents that is recognisably Yoorrook, but with a simplified visual language that sets the foundation for truth-telling into the future.

Throughout Yoorrook for Transformation, striking colour contrasts of ochres, blues and greens integrate with scaled up abstractions of the artefacts symbolised in the Yoorrook brandmark, including shield, boomerang and gathering circle. This provided a clean, bold and yet sympathetic framework to support the content.

As a manifesto of deep historical significance, the official public record (Truth Be Told) utilises a distinct charcoal tone and bold typography to reflect both the gravitas of the subject matter, and the resilience and culture of First Peoples. A spot varnish is applied to the front cover to provide an additional textural element.

OUTCOMES

The Yoorrook Justice Commission’s Third Interim Report, accompanying Summary Report and official public record Truth Be Told, were presented to the Governor of Victoria and the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria on the 19th of July, 2025, and tabled in the Victorian Parliament on the 1st of July, 2025.

The Third Interim Report, Yoorrook for Transformation, culminated in five printed and bound volumes, stretching over 39 chapters and over 1,500 pages. The official public record, titled Truth be Told also ended up a hefty 450-page, single volume publication. In print, these substantial documents are symbolic of the gravitas of the content within.

The Third Interim Report documents 100 recommendations to the Victorian Government for reform across land, education, health, housing, economic and political life, and access to records.

Fully accessible PDFs were also developed for both the Third Interim Report and official public record.

The final reports can be viewed here.