Just give it a chance

Lord Mayor Sue Hickey says the city’s new logo is a worthy symbol.

COUNCILS are generally committed to finding ways to engage with their communities and often spend thousands of dollars in attempting to do so, with mixed results.

This is reflected in the election turnout, where only 51.7 per cent of eligible voters thought it important enough to vote for their representatives in the City of Hobart.

The Hobart City Council is now on a major clean-up or replacement program for every public toilet in the city. In fact, we have finally solved the problem of a lack of public loos in the Sandy Bay shopping precinct. Yet does this raise public interest?

We have spent months addressing the governance of aldermanic expenses, which admittedly has engaged the public.

The city is rolling out some major infrastructure projects, including the reconstruction of Liverpool St, a revitalised bus mall, installing new rubbish bins en masse and updates to roads and cycleways. The city also has a massive private sector investment boom in progress.

Yet this week while I was on the way to the funeral of a great man in Scottsdale, former mayor of Dorset Barry Jarvis, the social media world went into overdrive with venomous comments on how dull and boring our great city is.

The catalyst for this outpouring of derogatory comments was a logo approved at the council meeting the night before. With little investigation into the meaning of the logo, a classic case of group think took place after one alderman described the logo as a set of Band Aids.

After this comment, it appeared that the seed had been planted and almost everyone believed this view or trivialised the logo as a basket weave.

While I stood with thousands of mourners at the funeral, including the very sad family, I paused to think of the interesting priorities for some.

Social media in all its forms is an amazing tool that can motivate people to donate, activate them to participate and also to inform.

The negative side is that it can become an unlicensed platform for rants and ill-informed commentary that then becomes “fact”.

It was clear that there was little appetite to understand the logo and, in fairness, I believe the council should have been more proactive in communicating the merits of and rationale behind changing the logo.

With a lifetime business background working with logos, my personal belief and professional opinion is that the logo is clean, colourful and modern version that ticks the boxes of being easily identifiable (once rolled out) and easy to reproduce, from pens to complex documents and embroidery.

I was bemused at the comments that questioned how it represented Hobart.

I wonder how people who first saw the Nike “swoosh” would have understood at first glance that this very simple symbol would go on to represent one of the most recognised brand logos around the world.

Correspondents complained of the cost, which is always fair, providing the costs have been accurately represented.

The council, unlike most corporations who change their logos, will be rolling out the logo as assets are replaced. For example, when a new vehicle is purchased, the logo will then be applied so in fact there is little additional cost.

Interestingly, at the funeral in Scottsdale I met the man who introduced the old council logo in 1984 and he told me of the public dislike at the time.

There is a sense of deja vu as we try to introduce the new version.

Like all major companies and in fact other councils, logos come under review and decisions are made to change them to be more reflective of the current strategic vision of the organisation.

For those who may be interested, the new logo, an abstract “H” monogram, represents the “fabric of our community”, a structure that holds a system together.

The new City of Hobart corporate logo is made up of two equal parts that are woven together, reflecting the idea of balance, partnerships and connectedness, connected to place and each other.

Through this, the new logo seeks to express, in a contemporary way, the seven future directions that make up the community’s City of Hobart 2025 Vision.

The concept was based on a City of Hobart brand profile developed through an engagement process with aldermen and community and council officer focus groups in 2013.

The social media writers complained that they should have been consulted. Consulting with 50,000 people would likely result in many different and conflicting opinions and at the end of the day the decision to change the logo was made by the elected representatives after an excellent presentation by the experienced and reputable Tasmanian born and educated graphic artist, Damian Scott of Great Scott Designs (who was also involved in the rebranding of TasTAFE and the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney).

The introduction of this logo has started a conversation in the mainstream and social media and interestingly has given the council media exposure worth thousands of dollars.

It also gives us the opportunity to direct people to more information about the evolution of the logo.

I encourage people to visit the City of Hobart website to find detailed information on the thinking process behind the development of the logo, what it means and how it will be implemented over a period of time. Detailed information is available at www.hobartcity.com.au.

At the end of the day, not everyone will see the artistic merits of this logo, and I know it is impossible to develop a logo that has universal appeal, but I do hope they will at least give it a chance because it will be the symbol that represents the great work of an institution dedicated to serving its people.