Some sense reported by Kerry McBride:
The new logo chosen for Wellington will be kept to tourism branding, while a committee searches for a better alternative.
The logo, which features a plus sign and new Absolutely yellow and Positively black shades from Resene, was heavily criticised when it was unveiled last week.
It was developed with Positively Wellington Tourism to “rejuvenate” the Absolutely Positively Wellington marketing campaign at a cost of $24,000.
Mayor Celia Wade-Brown said councillors discussed the logo at a workshop yesterday morning, and she felt they could “do better” than the new design.
“Could do better” is an understatement. The reaction was near universally negative. That no one involved in the whole process thought about the roll out, let alone that people might hate it is staggering.
“We have heard the feedback and understand there’s a lot of reaction to a new logo being attached to the city. Whether that’s the direction we wish to go in is a decision for the council to make, not one of our subsidiaries.”
The logo would remain part of the current Destination Wellington campaign, but the council’s new economic growth and arts committee would discuss the city’s identity and whether a rebranding was needed, Ms Wade-Brown said.
The campaign is a joint venture by the council, Grow Wellington and Positively Wellington Tourism.
“The main thing is we want councillors and Wellingtonians to be positive about a city brand. We think we can do better, but some of the elements in this design are great.”
It would be interesting to see what the tourism industry thinks of the logo. I’d suspect it would be inline with the much of the public. With the City as a whole spared having to use it, how do they feel about being left with it?
Councillor Andy Foster said the logo’s unveiling had been the first time most councillors had been shown the design and it “came as a shock”.
“We knew there was work being done about Destination Wellington and reinvigorating the brand, but we thought it was about the attitude – about getting back the swagger from when Absolutely Positively Wellington was launched.
“I don’t think a new logo was something we were anticipating at all.”
What was needed was an examination of the city’s identity and finding something that represented it.
Apart from the awful logo itself, the lack of communication between elected members and council staff was unbelievable. Councillors shouldn’t be finding out via newspapers reports.
Deputy Mayor Justin Lester said restricting the logo to the current campaign was the best way forward, but there was more work to be done if a new logo was needed.
Holding a competition similar to the 2011 Wellywood collaboration with The Dominion Post could be a good move, he said.
Hopefully this serves as timely reminder that all of council needs to pull together to avoid much of the troubles it faced in its last term. Fortunately this happened early enough in the new term that we (hopefully) wont be seeing any repeats.