Most recently, Montreal was faced with a grand opportunity to participate in the wonderfully creative world of crowdsourcing. They felt that the city needed a new brand. Unfortunately, more so for us native to the island, it seems as though the municipal government neglected to clean the fog from their specs. The result was the following:
Source: The Infernal Journal
The cost? Priceless is the wrong answer. Try more along the lines of $487,000. Now, after reading Howe's piece on the positive rise of crowdsourcing, and noting that it was published in 2006, one might find it difficult to understand
The expense is unprecedented, especially since graphic design is an insanely popular field of work/creative exploration. The idea that a professional company, put to the task with such a generous budget, could only come up with the "logo" is beyond perplexing. Crowdsourcing contests are not really that new, take the design for the Canadian millennium quarter, for example. The Royal Canadian Mint put Canadians to the task to design a coin that would represent themselves. The winner received the ultimate bragging rights, and I imagine there were some monetary earnings as well, but we can safely assume they didn't add up to half a million dollars.
The moral of this tale? Montreal is a wonderous city filled with talented people in the arts. Some might even claim that we are known for it (sometimes). The excuse--well, geez, there really isn't any. This great embarrassment and money-sink could have been easily avoided. The solution? Crowdsourcing. Point final.
Or maybe just hire these people.
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