Island Life: Anyone can do design.
164 Responses
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I'd like to suggest that readers subvert the competition by sending in anti-logos in their thousands.
Something like a soviet-style image of Rodney, with the words "My City. My Vote. Your Problem".
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I spent a couple of hours attempting to draw penises in MS Paint. Harder than it looks!
But then I do have a qualification in design, so I'm probably hampered by my artistic pretentions.
Edit: To clarify, the penises were going to be my entry into the competition for Auckland's logo. I wasn't drawing them for fun.
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These points may be true, but looking at the present Auckland City Council logo it's hard to be inspired by the professional design industry. The last logo the ACC had was just fine, in my (layman's) opinion.
I suppose, however, that a great many logos do their job so well that we don't really notice them.
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the penises were going to be my entry into the competition
Careful not to leave them lying around. I suspect that's how we ended up with the Sky Tower.
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Did Telecom use talented and experienced graphic designers to come up with this?
And had they seen the New Dowse Museum Logo before they got started?
I agree it shouldn't be left to 'Joe Public', but hopefully we can do better than these two, and the current Auckland City Council logo also. Actually, the Dowse one sort of works, but still...
While we're at it, we discussed a PAS patch some time back. Here's my Joe Public attempt (™). And yes, I totally ripped off PIL, inverted the blacks and whites and put fonts that don't even match in the middle, which completely supports your point ;-)
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Hahaha
those works need experienced, professional, trained experts? Just like graphic design actually.
Possibly nothing is quite as funny as a graphic designer or an information architect or whatever who feels professionally slighted by this sort of idiocy. ;)
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Can we get some design attention to those awful flag suggestions the Sunday Star Times insists on foisting as its contribution to the debate?
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I suspect telecom was plagiarizing Kurt Vonnegut - This is from breakfast of champions, and yes, it is supposed to be a butthole.
I'm a bit skeptical that a logo requires a multimillion dollar designer, but if that one was a knowing joke pulled on them by their designer I can say their money was well spent.
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I suspect telecom was plagiarizing Kurt Vonnegut - This is from breakfast of champions, and yes, it is supposed to be a butthole.
One of my favourite authors, coincidently.
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That said, if it was a knowing joke pulled on them by their designer I can say their money was well spent.
At least their logo wasn't goatsed.
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Given Telecom's recent woes, the design seems peculiarly apt: a symbol of a messed-up network. But it is clearly the work of a designer, just as Auckland's hideous logo clearly is the work of an amateur.
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Concurs with post. It sounds like no part of the process is sensible.
There's a teeny bit more brief in the FAQ
http://www.aucklandcouncillogo.co.nz/details/
http://www.aucklandcouncillogo.co.nz/faqs/
but FFS... 'effective'? What effect?I think the broader lesson may be to do with the power that autocracy has to make fundamental mistakes.
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To clarify, the penises were going to be my entry into the competition for Auckland's logo.
Roflnui
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I can pretty much guarantee that both the Auckland City Council and Telecom logos were the results of clients thinking they know better than the designers. The fact they both look awfully try-hard and completely vague at the same time is proof of Fraser's point: not everyone can do design, including clients.
I'm sure both researched well, however.
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The full horror of the Super City is revealed in the FAQ:
What work will the new Auckland Council do and where might the logo be used?
The new council will be responsible for things like policy and regulatory work, dog and noise control, parks, community facilities (halls, libraries, swimming pools etc), rubbish collection and recycling, building and resource consents, and local events.
Dog and noise control... it hardly seems worth hiring a professional; just get some kid to knock up something in MS Paint.
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That logo cost $50,000? You're joking. You're bloody having me on. Looks like something my 5-year-old could have done with a box of crayons and/or something my dog chucked up.
Et cetera.
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Hey Frazer,
Can we get you to redesign the NZ drivers license?, I'm embarrassed every time I had it over to a rental car agent.
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Call me old fashioned, but can't the new city just apply for a grant of a coat of arms. It costs around 2000 pounds.
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This whole competition reeks of cheap. hey, why pay a professional outfit MILLIONS (because we never heard the end of the hoohaa about the cost of the last logo) if we can get everything over and done with for 10 000 and if I read well, not even 10 000 in cash but "The winning entrant will receive a trophy from the judging panel and a prize package of the ‘best of Auckland’ attractions to the value of $10,000."
wTF??? I am a designer and I don't turn my nose up for 10000 dollars but wouldn't it make you feel king of dirty, when you're left holding a trophy in a picture and a bunch of vouchers and another outfit does get paid from that moment on for the actual ongoing design/branding and strategy work? What's wrong with paying people for honest work? -
There is nothing to stop professional designers working their mojo in getting a logo on the gogo.
All the new body is doing is saying :
"We don't want to pay hefty fees for the thinking up bit. When we have done that in the past we have been gouged and then laughed at. You do the inspiration bit first for free and then we might reward you with small cash prize and a further opportunity to sell us other stuff along that same theme"I think it is a stroke of genius.
The issue over whether it will be any good comes down to the judging panel. If they can't find anything good then I hope they have the stones to chuck the lot and start over.
A crowd-sourced car-park might fall over and kill people, costing the rate-payers a fortune in compensation payouts. A crowd sourced logo may at worst invoke ridicule (which a large chunk of the population is going to do regardless..). They can't lose.
Even if the entered art-works are a bit rough, if the panel like the concept, then they hire a professional to spruce it up.
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They can't lose.
Wrong - it's worth billions. There's stuff-all point trying to market Auckland as a world-class city for visitors and businesses (one of the justifications for this whole supercity palaver) if they can't be arsed paying for professional branding advice up-front. More cheap know-nothing incompetence from the top. Where do they find these clowns?
Seen Melbourne's logo lately? That's the competition.
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Seen Melbourne's logo lately? That's the competition.
... and yet there are still people who are not overwhelmed by its magnificence.
Some people think it isn't crap... hardly a stunning endorsement.
Cost AU$240,000. Auckland are going to get their (undoubtedly) rubbished-by-many logo for $10K. Good deal.
I still maintain... They can't lose...
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Spoken like a Hamiltonian :)
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I like Melbourne's Logo. It immediately reminds me of the NGV at Federation square, and it has some soul to it. The reaction in the Age is just too predictable. Some interest in the creative process, an interview here or there with people actually involved or even knowlegdeable about design, would maybe give people the opportunity to feel proud of the new identity. The usual yadda yadda that it actually has a cost (wouldn't be able to buy much of a house in Melbourne for 240 000, would you??) is tiresome.
And as you pointed out Evan it's not going to be costing 10K, the professional who spruces it up is going to charge a whole lot more than that. -
Seen Melbourne's logo lately?
Nope. Because nobody has, except for design/branding enthusiasts and the occasional grumpy vox pop-er.
Ok, I've looked now. It seems perfectly nice. Better than Telecom. Not as good as the NZ Film Commission or NZ Post. I can't imagine it speaking to me as a Melburnian, but I probably wouldn't be offended either.
That's the competition.
Melbourne might be the competition, but its logo? Is there any research at all to show that tourists are even aware of the logos of places they visit, much less influenced by them?
This just seems like the ferry terminal thing from another angle. People want Auckland to be awesome, and seen as awesome, but their approach is so heavily influenced by their own areas of expertise that they seem to entirely miss the fact that their ideas will have negligible or zero impact on awesomeness.
So we end up with arguments for looking good, and for telling people we're good. Do world class cities seriously worry about that sort of thing? Or do they just get on with being?
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