The following letter was sent to Sechelt Mayor John Henderson and copied to Coast Reporter.
I'm not a resident of Sechelt, nor do I pay taxes in your fine region. My Vancouver firm, Ion Branding + Design, was hired in 2010 to develop a brand strategy, identity and brand platform for Sechelt.
We ran a consultative process in the development of the work, facilitating community stakeholder meetings in order to develop a brand that would reflect the community and its citizens.
This is the brand that is currently being used by Sechelt. It is well considered and comprehensive, it represents the region well, it is designed to attract tourism, families and new businesses to the District.
Now the District's new council is throwing out the work and the implementation costs to hold a logo contest. This a criminal waste of time and money. A contest is the worst way to develop any kind of design and disrespects those who put in the hard hours for a slight chance of "winning."
Then you still have to hire a firm to develop the brand. Contests and speculative work are forbidden by the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada (gdc.net/about/index/articles/712.php) so you won't be getting any professionals entering.
I am disappointed by this decision of the new council. Not because my firm is proud of the work or that we will no longer be able to show it in our portfolio, but because of the disgusting waste of taxpayers' hard-earned money, quality work and printed materials. By the fact that rather than actually fully implementing the brand in order to prove it works or needs tweaking, you choose to simply toss it - all this simply because the brand was designed by an "offshore" firm.
The short-sightedness of this council is appalling, as is this contest.
David Coates, partner Ion Branding + Design
