This topic contains 70 replies, has 24 voices, and was last updated by 
GrouseTales 17 years, 6 months ago.
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I don’t know folks… We’ve had many t-shirts over the past few years. None of them ever turned into our logo, and I can think of a few that are worthy. I understand the concerns, but lets take it one step at a time. It’s a very nice t-shirt design 🙂
These are not complex issues.
If you are picking a shirt design, use a current AND approved logo.
If you want to use a new logo, take steps to get it approved by the WGA body. If there’s no time, don’t approve a design that uses it. Simple.
Lot’s of people worked hard to get logo’s submitted in a tight timeline to meet the April 15th Deadline. And yet, more than 2 weeks later, the WGA body has still not been given the opportunity to vote on the submitted designs.
And now there are T-shirts, in production I assume, for one of two Statewide WGA events that prominently feature an UNAPPROVED logo CONCEPT as if it were a branded Logo. Does anyone else see how incredulous this situation is?
What are you guys doing on the BOD if not managing these, rudimentary, questions of logo use and approval?
@grousetales wrote:
I don’t know folks… We’ve had many t-shirts over the past few years. None of them ever turned into our logo, and I can think of a few that are worthy. I understand the concerns, but lets take it one step at a time. It’s a very nice t-shirt design 🙂
A very nice design it might be, fantasitic actually. But that does not negate the fact that you are branding a WGA shirt with a logo that has never been seen anywhere else, certainly not on the WGA home page. What would it take to place the existing logo on the shirt and re-color to match the art? Not a lot.
There’s a process for these things and a reason why branding is important if you want to build on a name. having multiple “logos” over the years suggests that no one really cares about the WGA’s name or how we are viewed by outsiders.
I’m sorry, maybe I’m more sensitive to these things, but to me is sloppy and inconsiderate. It’s like a company spending thousands of dollars for re-branding themselves with a new logo and website where they logo and then they have a sign company create a completely different logo to put up outside the business. Mixed signals that suggest the business doesn’t have it’s ___ together.
Not to pile on here, but I will lend my support to s|s’s position here. I work in the PR business and, having worked on branding campaigns, this one has me scratching my head.
Now, I don’t know what other shirts in past campouts have looked like, but that’s not really the point.
Here we have an ongoing logo campaign/contest. We take an entry from that contest, and stick it on a shirt. Not only do we NOT put the current, approved WGA logo anywhere on the shirt, but we put “Wisconsin Geocaching Association” underneath the un-voted-on logo.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and sounds like a duck…
The best I can draw is a stick man but I know how hard the various graphic artists must have worked to put all the entries together. This is a tremendous disservice to them.
On the Left Side of the Road...Well, not to be a spoil sport, but if they change the shirts to the current logo, I will be needing a refund for the ones I bought. Because, frankly, the current WGA logo is not that pretty. (to my eyes of course)
I understand the sentiments and concerns about an “unbranded” logo on the shirt, but it WAS voted on by the board and camp-out committee, and won’t those people be leading the charge for the logo change ANYWAY??
not trying to ruffle feathers, so please take no offense, just voicing an alternate view on things.
@cachearrrs wrote:
it WAS voted on by the board and camp-out committee, and won’t those people be leading the charge for the logo change ANYWAY??
You’ve just made my point. When the logo contest was announced, it said:
“After the 30 day period of accepting proposals, voting will commence and last for 14 days, to narrow the field of proposals to 3 contenders.”
This voting has not happened even though the deadline for proposals passed. However, it appears to the average observer that the BOD has voted on the logo by action. And that was not the way the logo contest was laid out.
I don’t have a horse in the logo race, I’m not going to the WGA campout, and frankly I don’t care that much about the logo issue itself one way or another, so I’ll just bow out of the discussion.
On the Left Side of the Road...I never heard anyone on the board or the campout committee say that one section of the selected T-shirt design is our new logo. Could the timing of the two “contests” have been planned a little better? Yes. Is it fair to compare our volunteer board and committee members to how a professional marketing department or ad agency would have handled this. I don’t think so.
Regarding the T-shirt logo choice…..
I can see how the whole logo / t-shirt situation may “look”. However, please let me assure everybody that the two contests (the T-shirt contest and the Logo contest) are in no way shape or form related to one-another. There will be a chance to vote on a new WGA logo, and all submitted logos (including the existing WGA logo) will be on the ballot.Although it crossed my mind, I didn’t think it would be appropriate to exclude somebody’s logo simply because it contained some artwork also involved in another unrelated contest. If the little “g” logo becomes the next WGA logo after the voting, then those with t-shirts will have gotten a bit of a head start. If the little “g” logo does NOT become the next WGA logo, then it can simply be part of the WGA Campout 2008 and nothing more.
There was no malice, and if T-shirt artwork was submitted with any of the other contestants artwork, it would have been included in the voting as well.
What’s holding up the voting on the new WGA logo you may ask? Let me start by stating that each thing the BOD does is usually spearheaded by one member. Just as I’ve spearheaded the T-shirts for the campout, others on the board have been spearheading other things, including the logo contest. When that person then has personal commitments, their projects have a way of getting put on the back-burner if the need isn’t too urgent. To add to that, all members of the BOD, including our webmaster, hold down full time jobs, have families and other non-geocaching commitments. Sometimes things just don’t happen as quickly as we would all like.
I’m truly sorry if the unfortunate timing and sequence of events has caused any trouble, but again I will assure everybody that there was no agenda or hidden meaning behind any of it.
Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.
@kbraband wrote:
I never heard anyone on the board or the campout committee say that one section of the selected T-shirt design is our new logo. Could the timing of the two “contests” have been planned a little better? Yes. Is it fair to compare our volunteer board and committee members to how a professional marketing department or ad agency would have handled this. I don’t think so.
This seems like a cop-out. It shouldn’t matter that the board is volunteer, most BODs are! The fact is, the BOD is elected to represent a great organization of 800+ members and in spirit the hordes of non-members who use the site. That a HUGE organization and a HUGE resposibility.
If you are going to let “other” commitments get in the way of performing you duties, like following through in an BOD accepted “logo re-fresh” timeline that you couldn’t move out because it was impossible to deviate from, at least have the courtesy to do two things:
1. Apologize to the community members who have taken part in the contest, the outcome of which is being delayed by personal commitments from the BOD (I’m sorry, this one lands in all of your laps, IMHO) and,
2. DON’T accept a design that includes a proposed logo for the WGA that has yet to be approved, or at the very least voted on, by the WGA body.
If there was no time to do the voting set-up all the BOD needed to do was a “poll”. “Hey guys, we got a great T-shirt design, but it uses an unapproved logo option, everybody cool with that?” YES NO.
If the initial choices had been made, publicly, at least you’d have some justification for “trying it on for size” but even that hasn’t happened.
I still cannot believe how flip some of you are about this logo issue and not understanding the importance of branding. But then, I’m in the business and am being overly reactionary I guess.
OK, I’ve said my peace and I’ll shut up now.
ONE LAST THING, when it finally does come about, I am voting for the “g” logo and encouraging others to do so… it is the strongest and most versatile of the bunch… (in others words, this rant of mine is not about my logo option)
First of all, I don’t know about others seldom, but I did NOT take your views as being “biased” because of logo designs or selfishness in anyway. You just don’t seem the type
I think that this….
Although it crossed my mind, I didn’t think it would be appropriate to exclude somebody’s logo simply because it contained some artwork also involved in another unrelated contest. If the little “g” logo becomes the next WGA logo after the voting, then those with t-shirts will have gotten a bit of a head start. If the little “g” logo does NOT become the next WGA logo, then it can simply be part of the WGA Campout 2008 and nothing more.
…seems like a perfectly reasonable approach.
I am not an artistic person, and I don’t know crap about design and marketing tactics.
With that being said, I personally liked the Jacey submission. In fact, IF the whole “G” thing was missing from the design, I probably would still prefer it. I simply liked the design, and the “G” had absolutely nothing to do with it.
When planning WGA events there is a whole lot of work to do, and too few of people doing it. Sometimes we just don’t have the time or manpower to foresee ever possibly problem, and have a referendum to seek guidance. We need to make command decisons, and hopefully they are the right.
I truely appreciate all the designs we received for the T-shirt logo. We had some really cool submissions. The design is just one portion of the whole project. There is coordination with the print shop, setting up the WGA store, accepting and processing orders, receiving shipment, and organization the distribution.
The brunt of this project’s work seems to fall on a select few people. Perhaps we can solicit the help of our more artistic members to serve on a t-shirt committee for each campout? Just an idea, but I know it doesn’t solve this issue this year.
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