Logo Bull

I don’t know about you, but I am feeling sorry for the Auckland City Council over this logo issue. The introduction of a new logo is almost invariably greeted with the twin cries of “It cost what?” and “my ten-year-old could have done better than that.” Auckland’s new logo has elicited the same response as did Te Papa and Auckland, eh! before it. Closer to home, I had much the same trouble with the Welcome to Rodney gateway signs. So, there is nothing new here and, as so often happens, spin doctors are hung out to dry trying to defend the indefensible—the indefensible here being debate on a largely subjective issue with a populace believing it knows it all. Compounding this is the logo’s similarity to Triangle Television’s, and here the designers can be taken to task for not having done their homework. Then there is the apparent one million dollar price tag and the timing of the introduction so soon after councillors and candidates made rates control an election issue. So, it all becomes a bit of a mess. My friend and erstwhile colleague Mark Fenwick is trying to handle this for the Auckland City Council. Mark has some saving graces that will enable him to handle this with aplomb: he is experienced, he is placid and, whilst he is fully committed, he never lets the job get to him. Nevertheless, he has had a litany of issues that have seen him cornered into becoming an apologist for his council—most notably expensive junkets of councillors and staff. In my very similar role to Mark I have never had that magnitude of issue but ‘in the small pond’ of Rodney I have had the higher visibility, which may or may not have worked against me in the recent elections. I did lose that election, and some attribute the loss to my association with council as its “spin doctor and apologist.” I don’t. I don’t know why I lost, but it may well have been because of who I am rather than what I am. I just didn’t hack it. But we move on and I have moved back to council in a new and challenging role. And if in the future I find myself regretting the missed opportunity of becoming a councillor I shall simply create and put out there a new logo for the council to take my mind off it. Have a good weekend.

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