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Friday, 25 April 2008 |
... I was lucky that Trenin was in charge of the case. Wise as an old fox. He taught me everything. I hear him now: "When the facts are too plain, Nikolai Maximovitch, there is something amiss." ----George Steiner
Just about a year ago a contest was held to come up with a new city logo. A logo was chosen, and it began to appear on official city letterhead about four months ago. If you have not already seen the logo in the Times-Record or on an official notice from City Hall, here it is again as it appears on the letterhead.
Bear in mind that this logo represents not just the denizens of City Hall, but the citizens of Valley City as well.
When I first read of the contest in the Times-Record, I nagged my wife, Cathryn, until she agreed to submit a design.
We have both worked on a number of corporate identity packages involving non-profits, and some years ago Cathryn was the winner of the Twin Cities (Minneapolis-St. Paul) Publishers’ Award in the Corporate Identity category (logo, letterhead, and business card design).
My purpose in encouraging her to submit a design was not to win the contest, but simply to increase the chances that a good logo might grace official documents of the city. Clearly, this did not occur.
There were two major problems with the logo competition: (1) The method of selection of the winning logo, and (2) the logo selected. I would like to begin first with a critique of the logo.
What strikes me immediately is the assumption that the Rainbow Bridge is recognized by most people as a feature specific to Valley City. The Hi-Line bridge is immediately identified with Valley City, even by people who are only slightly acquainted with our town; the Rainbow Bridge is not.
While there may be very few Marsh-designed rainbow bridges left, bridges of that general appearance are quite common, and the designation “Rainbow Bridge” even moreso.
When I typed “rainbow bridge” into Google, I got back 182,000 images, including at least two natural bridges that are National Monuments and several man-made ones that are pretty large and spectacular.
This in itself is a fatal flaw in the logo design.
Just because we are very conscious of the local rainbow bridge doesn’t mean it has significance for non-residents. That it is “Marsh-designed” may be of considerable interest to bridge buffs, but I wager most people don’t care that much.
A logo needs to represent something that not everyone has in order to be a mark of identity. Of course, the Hi-Line bridge as part of logo design may be said to be a bit overused in these parts—but, after all, what else compares for identity value? The Hi-Line really does have national status and is quite impressive in any league.
I would say, either don’t use a bridge at all, or else use the Hi-Line. As it happens, 2008 marks the Hi-Line’s 100th anniversary, making it quite fitting to use it in an official logo—at least for a year or so.
In addition, as a couple of friends have observed, the serifs on the typefaces do not match, and the one coming out of the top of the bridge should have been removed. There are no warm colors in the logo; in fact, the bridge is ice-blue and is only lacking dripping icicles to remind us of our all-too-famous winter weather.
I do not want to be too hard on the designer himself. I realize that the contest rules did not contain any serious guidelines involving principles of logo design. And I understand that there was a certain amount of tweaking-by-committee before this product was finalized.
The inclusion of the somewhat pompous and bureaucratic expression, “The City of Valley City” and the unnecessary “North Dakota” went far toward clogging up the design, and eliminating its sizing flexibility. Why not include Barnes County, the U.S.A., and E Pluribus Unum? This makes no sense, so I assume it has something to do with legal matters.
I searched for a kitchen sink in the logo design, but failed to find it. It must be there somewhere. This logo needs to be sent to a fat farm.
The Logo Contest
First of all, the design of a logo for a municipality should not be left to amateurs. And second, making a decision by popular vote is simply goofy.
Logos involve artistic skill as well as a knowledge of the technical requirements for good logo design. The general public is not aware of these standards; indeed, most artists are not. Professional submissions should have been juried by one or more outside graphics or commercial art professionals.
But let us assume friendly, honest motives in the city’s having invited public submission and open voting for the contest. At least in that way the winning submission might better represent the tastes and wishes of all the people of Barnes County … right?
Well, as it turns out, this wasn’t quite the case. Out of several thousand potential voters county-wide, the contest gleaned a meager and meaningless 41 votes. Only 41 people bothered to send in a ballot! Didn’t they like any of the selected finalists, or didn’t they care?
To make things worse, there were five finalist logos dividing the vote. It doesn’t take a math whiz to calculate the possibility that the winning logo might have gotten as few as nine votes! If the voting indicates anything, it may only indicate which logo contestant took the most trouble to urge friends, relatives, and co-workers to send in the Times-Record ballots. It just doesn’t look good.
That there was a problem from the beginning is evidenced from the minutes of the Commission meetings, quote: “City Administrator overviewed [sic] the 41 votes received for the contest for a new logo. Different options were offered for the logo, such as having the winner with most votes make adjustments for easier embroidery and reproducing, or choosing another logo or none of the logo’s [sic]. Attorney Simonson suggested having an informal straw vote on elections day, June 26, as citizens left the building. Attorney Simonson will look into the legalities to see if this can be done.”
Clearly, the selection process had become a mess.
I inquired twice—in May and June of last year—as to what the outcome of the logo contest had been. I was put off in both instances.
I had forgotten about the whole thing until, in late February, I received a routine mailing from City Hall with the new logo on it. I thought that the logo was substandard, so I sent a letter to City Hall asking why nothing had been announced as to the winner. I received no response, but a couple of days later my wife received a letter from the Mayor thanking her for her participation, and letting her know that Dean Klein had won.
The public announcement of the winner was to be made during “Government Week.” It was not.
It occurred to me to find out when the new letterhead was printed. It had been printed in November of 2007.
The winner had been decided, the new letterhead printed and used, and yet no announcement had been made of the winner!
Could it be that City Hall had just wanted this whole botched-up business to attract as little attention as possible?
It is important for anyone in public life to avoid impropriety, or even the appearance of impropriety. That is why it is common practice to exclude employees of the city and their families from participation in a city-sponsored competition—especially one involving a substantial prize. Even supermarkets and radio stations follow this practice. So City Hall’s failure to do this, especially in view of the voting process, was particularly egregious. Dean Klein, the contest winner, is the husband of the city’s deputy auditor, who has worked in City Hall for seven years. Why didn’t the commissioners just avoid all this silliness and simply hire Mr. Klein to design a logo? They should have just asked how much he would charge—it would probably have been less than the $500 merchandise prize. Yes, there would have been a whiff of nepotism about it, but the stink wouldn’t have been quite so bad. You may think the logo issue is small and unimportant, but it doesn’t give me much confidence in City Hall’s general way of doing business.
And guess what: Further examination of the minutes of the early 2007 meetings of the Commissioners indicates that the same individual who gave us Webgate gave us the logo selection plan. (Of course, several other commissioners went along with it.)
Dennis Stillings’ column runs on occasional Fridays.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 23 May 2008 )
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