Logo creates double take

Ron Seymour 2009-12-23 Kelowna Daily Courier:
If she had it to do all over again, Mayor Sharon Shepherd would definitely have invited more public input into plans to change the city‘s official logo. Because people didn‘t feel they were consulted in the process, and particularly because they didn‘t like the end result, Shepherd is still getting an earful from the public. “In retrospect, absolutely we should have had more involvement from the public,” Shepherd said in a year-end interview. “I would have preferred if we‘d come up with three possible designs, and then let the public choose which one they preferred.” Shepherd said she‘s getting more negative feedback about the logo change than any other issue since she became mayor in 2005. She‘s open to the idea of dropping the new logo, said to have been inspired by a pinecone, but notes that there is not much support for that idea among city councillors. The only upside, she suggests, is that, like all logos, the new one will eventually give way to another. “It‘ll get changed – maybe sooner than later,” Shepherd said. “I don‘t think it‘ll last as long as other logos have.”

A sense that the old city logo – featuring the Sails and silhouetted figures, framed by water, hills and the sun – was outdated led the city to engage the services of consultant Phred Martin to come up with a new design. In a meeting with council in August 2008, Martin said any new logo would have to authentically represent Kelowna. “It‘s amazing how many cities try to be something they‘re not,” he told council at the time. But when the new logo was unveiled this past summer, much of the criticism centred precisely around the question of authenticity. The new logo, a circle made up of colorful triangles, was denounced as a meaningless abstraction that in no way represented Kelowna. “When I think of Kelowna, I think of the beach, the Sails, the lovely park, the good weather, etc. I do not see this in the new logo,” Mary Pavich wrote in a letter to the editor. “It reminds me of a sombrero from Mexico.” “Of course, the lovely city logo picturing the Sails could have been improved on. Instead, we went backwards to something that will never connect anyone to our great city,” Marc Whittemore wrote. The controversy only deepened when it emerged that the new logo bore a striking similarity to one created years ago for a U.S. housing company called Sunhaven. Martin denied drawing inspiration from the other logo, telling a reporter: “I wouldn‘t risk my reputation by plagiarizing because I had never even seen the other logo.”