Other logo remarkably similar to Kelowna's

Jennifer Smith - Kelowna Capital News Published: August 11, 2009 3:00 PM

The City of Kelowna’s controversial new logo may have the municipality, or rather its designer, in hot water. The Capital News has learned the logo is remarkably similar to one named in a top logo design trends article for 2007 that ran around the world in several languages at approximately the same time the city’s logo rebranding team began their work. Originally written for the graphic design website Logo Lounge, the article suggests light-inspired logos were among the top trendsetters for the 2007 year, naming LandDesign’s logo for Sunhaven as one of their top design trendsetters.

Contacted about the LandDesign product, which features virtually the same spirographic-style image and colour tones as the City of Kelowna’s new image, city communications staff admitted the similarities are unsettling.“There’s some subtle differences, but yeah, there’s some striking similarities as well,” said Carla Stephens, city communications manager, who noted the team contracted to do the work informed the city they had done an extensive search for similar concepts and turned up nothing. “We are going through the trademark process now, which we were doing anyway, and unless there’s a legal reason not to use it, we will continue to use it,” said Stephens. “We haven’t been able to track down the actual company (Sunhaven)…but sometimes, my understanding is that designers will create logos and the client never actually accepts them. So we’ve just been Googling and trying to track down that company,” she said.According to Bill Gardner, of Logo Lounge, the design was submitted to the website on Sept. 27, 2005 by Peter Crowley’s firm LandDesign and designed by artist Jooyeon Chae (of LandDesign) for her client, Pulte Homes, Inc.

Crowley said he understands Chae is no longer with the company, although LandDesign has yet to return calls to confirm she has left.Pulte Homes communications head, Jim Zuemer, was unable to say what Sunhaven is when contacted by the Capital News. The company is a huge real estate development firm spanning the continental United States and Zuemer said it may have been designed for one of their communities—though he was not sure when contacted. As such, he could not say whether the design was ever copyrighted or registered to one of their communities, but he is now looking into the matter. The man behind the City of Kelowna’s design, Phred Martin, of the local firm Splash Designs, was unavailable for comment as he is away. His partner on the project, marketing expert Rob Peters, said he knows exactly how Martin came up with the design. Their contract took them almost two years to complete and included an extensive consultation process in which everything from the colours to the avant-garde modern look of the design was chosen. “I guess there’s a million logos out there and I’m certainly surprised that there’s one that similar to it,” said Peters, who assures they did try to check the image was unique. The inspiration is said to have come from a pine cone Martin spotted while out for a run one day, the Salish basket and the Sunflower.

And the design has already won a highly prestigious award. Competing against 26 submissions from around the world, the design was named the winner of the Logo Redesign category at the 2009 Summit International Creative Awards.The logo was just one of eight designs initially submitted to the city for further input from the community and the designs were then narrowed down to three final options.City council selected the final design from those final options on their own. “So it’s not even like the designer said this is your only option,” said Stephens, who noted council thought this was the most versatile image in the bunch.Stephens said the community consultation indicated both city employees and local residents were looking for something dynamic, that represents both business and sustainability, and that images like The Sails, featured on their first logo, really didn’t represent the community as a whole.One of the things tha“t came out of that stakeholder group was that the natural environment was very important,” she said. “The story goes that Phred was actually running one day and he looked at the pine cone and that’s where he got his inspiration from.”

The city’s lawyers are now working on the copyright process and will hire a firm to handle the copyright searches necessary to decide whether the image can be used, according to city clerk Stephen Fleming.