New municipal logo revealed
GRAAFF-REINET — Subsequent to the 2016 local government elections, the FCB Foundation presented three draft logos to the Executive Committee of the Dr Beyers Naude Local Municipal Council, with the intention of one logo being chosen to be the logo to be used by the newly amalgamated municipality.
Council was of the opinion that more public participation should take place so that local designers would get a chance to submit their representations as well.
During public participation, in which the call for submissions was done in the Advertiser, using social media, and in community meetings, Jac Grobbelaar from Graaff-reinet submitted his logo, which was also presented to Council.
Another round of public participation was held by the municipality, using the same channels as mentioned above. Three more logos were submitted by Thabo Mboneni and one by Elva Albridge. As the logos were submitted, they were placed on the municipality’s Facebook page.
A logo committee, comprising of three councillors and two officials, held a meeting to discuss and tally the inputs for the logos. It was found that only 30 votes were received.
Subsequent to the meeting, the Bhejane Game Reserve donated a night’s stay for two on their premises in order to encourage more people to vote for a logo.
Thus, it was decided to go through one final public participation process in order to garner more votes. This was very successful, and e-mails, Facebook submissions and votes that the Councillors garnered were tallied and taken into account.
During the last leg of the voting, more than 620 people voted. A large majority (73%) of the voters voted for the logo submitted by Elva Albridge, showing two kudu silhouettes and an aloe with a mountain background.
After some changes were made to the logo, including rectifying the accent on Naudé, as well as a few colour changes, the final logo was announced at the Council meeting last Thursday.
The slogan used beneath the graphic was decided upon by the Communication Workstream in the process prior to the establishment of the municipality. It is the combination of the three former municipalities’ slogan.
Denzel Korkie from the Willowmore area was the lucky recipient of the accommodation prize.
Elva Albridge and her husband own a digital printing company in Jansenville, and she designed the winning logo using the Corel Draw computer software.
Well before the competition was announced, she started putting together her idea of what a logo to represent the amalgamated municipality should look like. She was delighted that her design was chosen over all the other submissions and very surprised!
“I started by designing a logo that will tell me a story about our beautiful Karoo and the things that all three municipalities have in common. I just looked around me and realised, every new day we have the pleasure of enjoying God’s great gift to us as people living in the Karoo” she said. “The logo represents the Gem of the Karoo with its scenic beauty, breath taking landscapes and pristine environment”.