Victoria’s Heartland: Four shires, one place of plenty

A four-shire rebrand built into the site’s structure: four regions with equal weight, town-by-town discovery, and the practical layer a real trip needs.

Visit victoriasheartland.com.au

Client: Destination Central Victoria
Region: Victoria
Launched: 2026
Edition: Tourism Edition
Recognition: Silver, 2026 Melbourne Design Awards

Victoria’s Heartland home page hero: ‘Place of Plenty’ in lime condensed capitals over a misty sunrise view of rocky hills

The challenge

For years this corner of central Victoria was read as one town: Daylesford. The mineral springs made it Victoria’s spa centre, and the client’s own site says the Daylesford area is home to most of Victoria’s mineral springs. But the fame of one town had swallowed everything around it. Kyneton, Castlemaine and Maldon, the cool-climate wineries of the Macedon Ranges, the goldfields towns around Maryborough: all of it sat in the shadow of a spa weekend.

Then the organisation itself changed shape. Two more council areas joined under a new partnership, and Destination Central Victoria, the peak industry body for tourism across four shires (Hepburn, Macedon Ranges, Mount Alexander and Central Goldfields), needed a brand that could speak for all of them. A brand built around one town could no longer do that. Victoria’s Heartland was the answer: a rebrand built to decentre its most famous town and present the whole region as “a place of plenty”.

Roam’s scope followed the brand’s logic. Information architecture for four shires, town-by-town discovery, editorial itineraries, interactive mapping with travel times, train access and EV charging, Algolia search with faceted filtering, and ATDW integration underneath it all.

Victoria’s Heartland - Region map: navy illustrated map of the Heartland’s sub-regions and towns, introducing Daylesford & Surrounds — The region map: four regions and their towns, opening on Daylesford & Surrounds.

What we built

A structure that argues the brand’s case

The rebrand lives in the information architecture. Victoria’s Heartland opens on four regions given equal structural weight: Daylesford & Surrounds, Macedon Ranges, Castlemaine & Surrounds and Maryborough & Surrounds. Each carries its own story and unfolds into its own town and village pages, from Gisborne and Woodend in the Macedon Ranges to Talbot and Dunolly in the goldfields. A visitor who arrives for the spa town finds, in the same structure, Maldon, described on the site as the first town in Australia the National Trust named a notable town, and Clunes, one of Australia’s only book towns.

Victoria’s Heartland home page, captured top to bottom — victoriasheartland.com.au home page, full length

Town-by-town discovery, in the region’s own voice

The editorial layer does the work the brand promised. Daylesford & Surrounds opens with the springs and the Swiss Italian immigrants who protected them from gold-mining damage. Castlemaine & Surrounds opens on its gold-rush prosperity and its artists, then the makers at The Mill; the Victorian Goldfields Railway, a volunteer-run steam railway between Castlemaine and Maldon, is among its featured Operators. Maryborough & Surrounds calls itself “the heart of gold-rush country”, with Talbot’s farmers’ market and Carisbrook’s heritage streetscapes. The Macedon Ranges opens on Hanging Rock, then Mount Macedon’s gardens, the Malmsbury Viaduct and the wineries around Lancefield. Every page carries the client’s Acknowledgement of Country.

The practical layer a real trip needs

Inspiration and planning sit together. Getting Here & Around gives a driving time and distance from Melbourne for each of the four hubs, each linking to directions. It lists V/Line journey times from Southern Cross by destination town and station, with the coach connections that carry visitors on to towns such as Trentham and Daylesford, and it lists EV charging stations town by town, including Evie and Tesla Destination Chargers. Itineraries range from stop-by-stop plans such as “A Taste of Harcourt” and “Woodend Wanderings” to walks such as Mount Macedon to Camels Hump, with suggested time shown up front. What’s On, Hot Deals and a Get Inspired blog keep the site current between visits.

The platform underneath

Operators arrive as ATDW Products synced automatically, so a page such as the Victorian Goldfields Railway carries its address, operating days, contact and booking links, facilities, accessibility features and an interactive Mapbox map. Product tiers let the team feature accommodation, food and drink and events where they want them seen. Algolia search, with faceted filtering, puts a category such as Events one tap from any page. And because it is a Roam site, it maintains its own llms.txt.

Victoria’s Heartland - See & Do interactive map: map of central Victoria with clustered navy product pins and a filter-by-type menu — See & Do as a map: Products clustered across central Victoria, filtered by type.View all 6 images

The outcome

Victoria’s Heartland went live in 2026, and in the same year it won Silver in Digital - Travel at the 2026 Melbourne Design Awards, one of four Roam sites that between them won every award in the category.

The site presents four shires with equal weight, and their towns and villages, Gisborne and Dunolly among them, have pages of their own. Train times, EV chargers and drive times sit beside the itineraries, and Product content syncs from ATDW. Daylesford is still there, one town among many.