Ontario Rebranding
The Liberal government is under fire for spending $219,000 to replace Ontario’s traditional trillium logo with a drastically new version. Opposition critics are calling it a waste of money at a time when Premier Dalton McGuinty’s government is running a deficit.
Some say the new Ontario provincial logo looks more like holly than a trillium.
(Government of Ontario) The logo was introduced in 1964 and underwent small modifications in 1972, 1994 and 2002.
Other than the colour changing to green in 1994 and being switched back to black in 2002, changes to the design have been minor. The latest version eliminates the box surrounding the flower. Three abstract human figures have been added.
The trillium logo has undergone minor changes since it was introduced in 1964. (Government of Ontario) Some design experts are critical of the design, saying it looks more like holly than the official symbol of Ontario. What are your thoughts on this one?
Read more here.
Found at: newstoday.
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July 4th, 2006 at 9:06 am
that looks a bit like the ubuntu logo http://www.ubuntu.com/
July 4th, 2006 at 9:23 am
I like this rebranding. Actually, it’s the first one this year I like.
Especially the three figures and the missing border are a positive change. This paired with it’s almost 3d-ish transformation opens up the space and gives the whole thing a lot more of a free feeling. The logo implies “fun”, “space”, “friendship” and “nature” throughout it’s design. And this is why I consider it perfectly done. It’s an A+.
By the way: Everyone complaining about the rebranding’s price and timing because of the government’s deficit should read some storys about the rebranding of Germany’s Arbeitsagentur. THAT was a wast of time, energy and money!
July 4th, 2006 at 12:56 pm
[...] Ich finde den Entwurf unspektakulär aber gelungen. Eine kleine Historie des Logos gibt es auf Advertising/Design Goodness. [...]
July 4th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
I agree this is a waste of time. Re branding is stupid 80% of the time usually a sign of bad leadership. Nothing wrong with the old logo. I can understand why it costs so much. Government accounts are a pain in the ass. You need to charge more to recoup the admin costs
July 4th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
While it does look less conservative I think it’s not easy to make the mental step from the old to the new one. The old one has a crest type quality after all, making it easier to connect to a state, while the new one looks like the logo for a holiday resort or maybe a religious meeting place.
I don’t know Ontario so I can’t tell if that’s what they want to look like, but as a design student I would have kept it closer to the original’s former modifications minus the box which would not only be easy to recognize due to a minimum of shapes and a minor change, but also a piece of cake to remember and draw.
It was a quality logo, now it has more of a gimmick.
July 4th, 2006 at 9:01 pm
I worked for the Ontario Gov’t years ago in a graphics-related capacity and they went to a lot of trouble over the care and feeding of their logo. I can’t say I particularly liked it or disliked it, but this new version doesn’t cut it for me.
Peter (just a student, eh? Hmm… good prospects!) has some thoughtful observations: the people image seems really gratuitous to me, and the trillium leaves have been diluted to the point that they are pointless. Maybe there’s no trilliums left as Toronto expands inexorably north. God forbid that this should be interpreted as a religious meeting place symbol… perhaps Ontario Hot Tubs?
I think it’s good, even important, to try to evolve a visual identity over time, but this is not evolution, it’s some sort of devolution toward something trendy… exactly the opposite of what a government organization needs.
$219K eh? Wish we’d seen the RFP…
July 5th, 2006 at 4:17 am
The best is 1994-1972, i suppose, they are very few different…
Sure i don’t like the last version!
July 5th, 2006 at 8:42 am
Does anyone else see three people lounging in a hot tub when they see this? I’m not a fan of this redesign at all. I would have liked to see the 1964 box with something similar to the 1972 trillium (same size, perhaps reduce the stroke) inside.
July 5th, 2006 at 10:00 am
It looks like a “yield” sign that eats souls. but with a jaunty angle.
July 5th, 2006 at 11:33 am
I see why they wanted this type of a logo but I think that it misses the mark… on a large scale. Especially if people are mistaking it for a holly than what it truly is.
While Ontario is quite multicultural, the multiculturalism is concentrated in Toronto and if they’re not going to get the symbollism right, they should just leave the Ontarian symbol alone…
at least that’s my take on it.
July 5th, 2006 at 10:50 pm
I see 3 people joinging the rush out of Ontario headed for Alberta….but seriously, isn’t the idea of a distinct logo for a province just a little odd? I never understood why some Canada ‘Brand Cop’ in Ottawa just doesn’t gather all these provincial mini-me’s into a boardroom and say “look, you’re all part of Canada. We’ve got this great flag, beautifully simple red and white colour palette, the maple leaf….those are your brand design elements. Now go play with them, and them alone.” Or maybe, I’m just being a tad too optimistic in believing that design could actually play a minor role in underscoring national unity?
July 6th, 2006 at 9:24 am
Making little people from a V with a dot in the middle is really rad and everything, but not rad enough to justify this logo.
It honestly looks to me like someone said, “how come we don’t have any of those ‘abstract, joyous people’ in our logo? We’re a province! We need ‘joyous people!’”
It looks like the entire thing was re-worked to accomodate this “new” direction, which can be found in just about every non-profit or government agency logo ever.
July 6th, 2006 at 10:31 am
I actually like the 1994 version the best, and if it were me I probably would have played off the swirl the trillium from the old logos more in the new one. I think the new one’s biggest problem is the mega white space and odd shape created in the center. And the critics are right, it does look like holly. But I do like the addition of abstract people in a way, and I do like that this version has energy and doesn’t look like a rubber stamped road sign.
Hard to explain my mixed feelings on spending money on re-design when you’re broke. I mean, not a good idea for Ontario - but the redesign could bring them some nice press and require new marketing materials which could boost their presence in the market. And I’m always one for sending more cash the graphic designers’ way - but I’m bias on that one.
July 6th, 2006 at 10:32 am
Oh, and one more thing - why did they start to drop the “O” shape that appears in the first addition. I think that could have been played up more, if not at all.
July 6th, 2006 at 10:38 am
i just think that their really big mistake was the radical change…too radical
July 6th, 2006 at 6:08 pm
I have only one question. How much did the previous changes cost? It would seem to me that if you change your logo in ANY way you would incur the same set of cost related to the rebranding.
Just wondering.
July 6th, 2006 at 6:08 pm
Looks like three dudes sitting in a hottub to me.
July 9th, 2006 at 11:27 pm
this will work well for the Christmas season.
July 16th, 2006 at 3:12 am
I also saw three guys in a hottub. I can also see a holly.
When I look at it I think of that new Holiday Inn commercial where the third enters into the hottub a bit too close to one of the other guys.
September 19th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
I don’t know if anyone had seen this in appication, but I have. They changed the logo, but did not bother to update the logotype to match. The result was very unpleasant and unmatching… very disappointing. I also can not stand the skewing, it hurts my eyes to look at it… The old logo was nice, it is a shame.
March 22nd, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Yeah, the new logo blows chunks. The old one looked hyper-modern and the new one looks older. What a malaise of culture this signifies!
January 5th, 2009 at 11:30 am
It looks like three men in a hot tub
January 17th, 2010 at 10:44 am
I liked the old logo because it was clean, simple and bold. There was nothing fancy about it, and in my opinion that is how a good logo should be. It makes it more memorable and identifiable. I’m not a big fan of the abstractness of the “new” logo. Is it a Trillium? Is it Holly? Is it three people with crazy tree-like arms holding hands? Is it a ninja star? There are other more political aspects that bother me about it, but I’m not sure this is the appropriate forum to voice those frustrations. At the end of the day I don’t think that there was anything wrong with the old logo, and I think that there are far more important things that the Province could have spent $219,000 on