Aware Super Brand Guidelines: First State Super of 1992, VicSuper & the 2020 Name

A public-sector fund that opened its doors to everyone.

Aware Super is an industry superannuation fund headquartered in Sydney, and its roots are in the New South Wales public sector. English Wikipedia says it was established in 1992 as First State Super, to provide superannuation for New South Wales government employees. The fund tells the same story on its own website: “When super was introduced for all Australians in 1992, we opened our doors as First State Super.”

Membership widened in stages. On 1 May 2006 First State Super became a public offer fund, open to anyone eligible to receive superannuation, English Wikipedia says, in response to members who wanted to stay with the fund when they moved from the public to the private sector. In 2012 it merged with Health Super, a not-for-profit fund for workers in health care and community services; at the time, English Wikipedia says, the merger made the combined fund the third-largest super fund in Australia. In 2016 it bought the financial-planning business StatePlus.

The present name arrived with a merger. On 1 July 2020 First State Super and VicSuper merged and the combined fund became Aware Super, English Wikipedia says; on 3 December 2020 WA Super merged into it as well. The new name dropped the reference to a single state. Today the fund describes itself as “one of Australia’s largest super funds” and as “open to everyone,” and calls itself a “profit-for-members” fund.

The latest merger brought in a telecommunications fund. In July 2025 Aware Super signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding to explore a merger with TelstraSuper, English Wikipedia says. CFOtech Australia reported on 14 May 2026 that the two funds had signed a heads of agreement in October 2025 and executed a successor fund transfer on 30 April 2026, moving about 85,000 TelstraSuper members into Aware Super and giving the enlarged fund about 1.3 million members. The fund’s own website, citing internal data at 30 September 2026, gives “over 1.2 million members,” a figure that excludes clients of its investment funds.

“Super helpful”: the voice of the website.

The fund’s website shows how it wants to be read. Its main menu is arranged around a member’s life rather than around products: “Compare & join,” “Grow & manage my super,” “Explore & plan retirement” and “Help & tools.” Under those headings sit retirement income and transition accounts, insurance cover inside super, and tools including My Retirement Planner, an insurance calculator and an Age Pension eligibility calculator. The fund says its member service starts with “friendly, local call centres, smart online tools and our app,” and it points members to its newsroom, its governance and policy pages and its corporate sustainability pages from the same about page.

The phrase “super helpful” recurs as a kind of signature: the about page says the fund’s goal is “to be super helpful,” and members can book a “Super Helpful Check-in.” The fund lists its values on its website, and two of them are short imperatives, “Care deeply” and “Lead bravely.” The about page also opens with an acknowledgement of the Traditional Custodians of the land, and the footer repeats it.

The public-sector roots are still visible. The website runs a separate State Super hub offering financial planning to members of the New South Wales state schemes SASS, SSS and the State Super pension, and says Aware Super’s planners have provided such services to public-sector employees and their families “for over 30 years.” The fund says it looks after more than 135,000 retirement members, which it describes as making it one of Australia’s largest retirement providers.

The fund has also moved overseas. English Wikipedia says that in April 2023 Aware Super bought a 22 per cent shareholding in Get Living, the build-to-rent developer that owns East Village in London, from the Qatar Investment Authority, and that in November 2023 it opened its first international office, in London, to invest directly in property, infrastructure and private equity in the UK and Europe.

How super funds present themselves.

Australian superannuation funds and wealth firms present themselves to members as much as to the public, and a fund’s identity has to work inside an account as well as in an advertisement: on a login screen, in an app, on a yearly statement and in an annual report. The funds in this guide tend to use friendly sans-serif wordmarks, and their palettes often reach for teal, purple, orange and navy.

Their language is member-first. Industry funds describe themselves as run for members, and many carry their origins in their names: a trade, a sector, a state or an employer. Mergers have blurred those names over time, and several funds now carry names that no longer point to a single industry or state. Their websites often say which workers a fund was set up for, even after it has opened to everyone.

The pictures follow the same idea. Fund websites and reports tend to show members at work and at home in everyday settings rather than buildings or products. The pages themselves are practical: what super is, how to join or combine accounts, retirement income, insurance in super, and member tools such as calculators and retirement planners, with annual reports and governance pages for those who look further.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each fund or firm: when it was founded, how it merged, who owns or runs it, and how regulators have dealt with it, with figures for members and assets given only as a dated source states them. The palettes and typefaces shown are unofficial interpretations, and no logo or mark is reproduced.

A security finding in 2012 and a planning arm.

The fund’s record includes a privacy matter from its First State Super years. In September and October 2011 a customer discovered a security vulnerability in First State Super’s online system, English Wikipedia says, and the episode drew national and international press coverage. The Federal Privacy Commissioner investigated, and on 7 June 2012 found that First State Super had been in breach of National Privacy Principle 4.1 at the time of the incident; citing the immediate action of First State Super and Pillar, the Commissioner closed the file, finding the response adequate in the circumstances.

The fund also owns StatePlus, a financial-planning business it bought in 2016, English Wikipedia says. For members, that means advice sits under a separate name from the fund itself, a split that shows up in how each is presented online.

For a design guide, Aware Super shows how a fund with public-sector roots can rename itself around a plain-spoken voice rather than a place. Compare AustralianSuper, another fund formed by merger, and HESTA, the fund for health and community-services workers. For this guide we use a deep plum, a harbour teal and a coral with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Aware Super’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.