BONNYVILLE – Discussions on whether to accept a newly developed brand identity and logo for the Town of Bonnyville spanned two council meetings before Town councillors decided there was more work to be done.
The Town has already spent $75,000 to complete a Branding Strategy for the municipality, but on Oct. 24, council approved $30,000 more to get the rebranding “right.”
While the final report for a new brand identity and logo created by Stormy Lake Consulting and Will Creative Inc. was not made public, council members alluded to the concepts and designs through their conversations at the Oct. 10 regular council meeting.
Mayor Elisa Brosseau said, “We already are $75,000 into this project... I liked the tone of voice of where we're going. The tone of voice was entrepreneurial, resilient, adventurous, neighbourly and fun. I think it depicted, very well, the Town of Bonnyville."
However, not all of council was sold on the final product presented when it came to the iconography proposed for the Town’s new logo.
Council was presented with the concept of a wordmark logo for the Town’s rebranding rather than an icon logo. While some council members were unsure about losing an icon logo, others didn’t mind the new direction but wanted something more distinctive for the Town.
Ted Traikovski, the Town’s general manager of planning and community services, acknowledged that “many municipalities are going towards a wordmark type logo nowadays, and that seems to be the industry standard.”
A common example of a wordmark logo is the colourful letters used in Google’s name, which doubles as the business' logo. Other examples include the iconic calligraphy for Coca-Cola or Disney.
Traikovski continued, “They are changing up from the stale imaging that you would see in the 70s and 80s with the heraldic symbols and things like that to more of a plain basic logo.”
However, Traikovski did point out that with the length of the Town’s name it does make the process of creating a wordmark logo more challenging to nail down.
Coun. Neil Langridge was the first to share his discontent with the current logo proposal.
“The current consultant, from my experience, has not listened to the direction 100 per cent for what I believe council has given them,” said Langridge. “When you're spending that kind of money and tax dollars you have to make sure that you try and get it right and for me, we're not there yet. We haven't got it right.”
Coun. Byron Johnson echoed Langridge’s sentiments but acknowledged that he is seeing more municipalities move towards a wordmark logo.
However, the designs presented for the Town of Bonnyville did not capture the essence of the community, Johnson stated.
“What we were presented [with] was very plain. There was really nothing added to it,” described Johnson. “From the start of this, I've liked the ‘B’ to stand out a little bit more – from my first email, from the first presentation, and to my comments to them directly... And, it just hasn't quite developed.”
Coun. Phil Kushnir expressed concern over spending more money. “If you're not happy with what they're doing, what's another $30,000 going to do?”
Both Langridge and Johnson expressed that while they don’t think the whole process needs to be revisited and a lot of what has been completed to date has been valuable, they do feel like the right logo hasn’t been designed yet.
With no consensus reached during the Oct. 10 meeting, the discussion was tabled until the next regular council meeting to allow further discussion at the Governance and Priorities Committee Meeting and to receive more information from the consulting agencies.
In a letter to the mayor, Jaydene Govender, a brand executive from Will Creative, acknowledged, “With the route chosen, our existing wordmark was created to be more restrained, as the more expressive side of the brand would come from the graphic devices that would accompany a stand-alone 'B' without competing or distracting.”
She continued, “Because of this, what the council saw in our recent presentation might have felt underwhelming. However, in our experience, making the 'B' more expressive would become problematic when looking at the identity in its entirety, and how it all fits together cohesively.”
Govender also provided a list of option and costs for council to consider if they chose to move forward with the Town’s rebranding.
At the Oct. 24 meeting, Coun. David Sharun emphasized that he didn’t want to reinvent the wheel but wanted to see the brand rely on what the community already has to offer.
Agreeing with other council members that going down a new route for a logo would be the best course of action, Sharun emphasized that council needed to be clear with the direction to the consultants to prevent clouding the message.
Council voted in favour of pursuing a new route for the development of a logo for the Town’s brand identity to the tune of $30,000 to be funded from the general capital reserve.
“This is going to be a 30 to 40-year brand, and we need to make sure we get it right and so I have no problem with spending the additional funds to make sure that we do get it right,” said Langridge.