This topic contains 85 replies, has 36 voices, and was last updated by 
Team Black-Cat 16 years, 10 months ago.
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I’m not suggesting that the BOD conduct their business in total privacy. I am suggesting that the BOD has every right to make a decision that they believe is in the best interest of the organization that isn’t covered elsewhere in the bylaws
Even THE BOARD doesn’t think this was the best logo choice! If some on the current board can’t even say they got the best outcome and that it was “handled incorrecly” then why not see if it should be revisited????
I actually agree with TBC on one thing. The board can certainly have made this decision without any input from the members. However, the fact that they did ask for member input makes this a group I want to be a part of. However, where I think we went wrong as a group is we should have continued to use the expertise in the group throughout the process not just to sumbit initial ideas. There are obviously talented people who both geocache AND work in the field of graphic arts. Those folks at a minmum should have been involved in the last stage of the game. Not necessarily the masses. I think the board’s interaction with “the rest of us” was right on. We were asked which design was best and whether to keep the old logo or just spruce it up. However, after that we had a small group of geocachers and some person we dont know who was hired for peanuts to work through an additional 20 designs. At that stage, what would have been ideal would be to pull in a “subcomittee” by volunteer basis of those members who have expertise in the area to further assist the board to make an excellent design choice.
My comments are made specifically because we have board members claiming they were not impressed with the final outcome nor how the process was handled. If that is the case, why not as a board just revisit the whole thing? What is there to lose? My point is, you dont lose much.
-cheeto-
@Team Black-Cat wrote:
I can’t help to think what would have happened if the new logo just showed up one day without ANY input from members.
I bet you it wouldn’t have caused the ruckus this process did. “Announcement: we freshened our web page and logo. Hope you like it.”
Much of the frustration around this issue has arisen from the LOOOONG process itself, which gave people more time to develop vested interests in the outcome.
On the Left Side of the Road...@gotta run wrote:
@Team Black-Cat wrote:
I can’t help to think what would have happened if the new logo just showed up one day without ANY input from members.
I bet you it wouldn’t have caused the ruckus this process did. “Announcement: we freshened our web page and logo. Hope you like it.”
Much of the frustration around this issue has arisen from the LOOOONG process itself, which gave people more time to develop vested interests in the outcome.
I think this is essentially correct. The process did take a lot longer than it should have, for a whole range of reasons.
For reference, here is the motion that the Board passed and published to the membership last spring:
“Whereas the current logo used by the WGA is felt by some to be dated, and in need of refreshing, the WGA will hold a contest open to all members and friends for the development of new logo.
The contest will be announced immediately following this motion, should it be passed. This motion and the votes by BOD members will also be made public at the same time.
The contest will be advertised in the WGA forums, and proposals will be submitted for a period of 30 days, March 15 thru April 15. The contest is open to all WGA members and friends.
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.
After the 14 day period, the 3 proposals that receive the most votes will be voted on, with the fourth option added of leaving the logo as is, without change.
The proposal that receives the most votes in the second period of voting will be forwarded to the next WGA Board of Directors to consider becoming the new WGA logo, with strong advisement that it it be adopted as the new WGA logo, to be used on the WGA website, and all official WGA documents. In the event the new WGA Booard of Directors chooses not to adopt the contest winner as the new logo, the rationale for that decision and the voting shall be made public.”
Stop quote….
So as you read thru that, it is pretty obvious that we had a definate time line in mind, but it was not possible to adhere to it.
The other thing that I would hope that folks would see in reviewing the above motion, is that the board faithfully followed the process for logo selection outlined all along the way, and that process included substantial membership involvement.
We did accept proposals for logo revision from all members, and we did get many many proposals.
We did have the membership vote to narrow it down to the top 3 contenders.
And then we did have a second vote of the top 3 contenders and the old logo to see which the membership at large preferred, and the majority preferred the block letters.
At that point we contacted a commercial artist to make it photo ready with instructions to look at ways to modify the winning design a bit to differentiate it from the Washington design, while keeping the winning design essentially intact. (Tie can address the details of this.)
At that point, the board voted 6-2 to adopt the winning design, and we announced it here.
I just want to lay that out there, to acknowledge that we did not adhere to the timeline announced, and agree that fact is unfortunate and no doubt a factor for all the angst. But I also want to clarify that the board did adhere to the process that was announced last spring. It was essentially the same process we used for the coin design process, which had proved successful.
I also want to note that no one objected to the process when it was announced last spring, so it is not really fair to criticize the process at this point. It is fair to criticize the board for not adhering to the time line. But some of these other critical comments are not really fair, as the board did adhere to the published process every step along the way, and I know that the each and every board member acted in good faith in trying to produce a result that we thought the members wanted.
zuma
I hope that when it comes time to vote in the upcoming board election, people will think of all that is involved in running the WGA and in keeping things going forward. This election, as are most candidate elections, is more than a one-issue election, and if people are too focused on one specific thing, whether you are pro or con on this issue or any other, it comes down to faction vs. faction instead of what is good for the whole organization, and we lose sight of the big picture.
Think of everything every candidate for the Board has done or not done, what he/she can do for geocaching in Wisconsin, and don’t vote somebody in or out based on whether he/she is/was pro/con on this relatively minor logo issue.
“Can’t we all just get along?”
Personally, I will vote for candidates who can guarantee mild winters with minimal snow cover, just enough but not too much. 😉
@zuma wrote:
What we tried to do was to freshen up our logo, and have a fun contest for that logo. It was never the intent to have a million dollar logo. It was never the intent to upset people, or meant as a vehicle for rancor to disrupt our normal friendly conversations. To me, friendships and fun going out caching with friends are more important than how we choose to rearrange a few electrons in an electronic design.
zuma
OK. I’m gonna go over my viewpoint one more time, even though I know everyone is tired of this and tired of hearing from me – I’ve said so much already. But I want to be sure that everyone knows where I am coming from and is not under the impression that I am not being vocal because another logo that I favored didn’t win.
First, Ralph presented a great summation of the spirit of the logo contest and also of the spirit of our organization and the work our volunteer board performs for its members. I cannot imagine what the organization would be like without the commitment and that our BOD and moreover our members bring to the sport in Wisconsin. One only has to look at the success of the LCG in it’s virgin year to see the passion that many of us bring to this ridiculous game of looking for junk in tossed tupperware! And, it will continue to grow despite how some of us feel about the look of our logo or the state of our website. The logo isn’t the only dated thing about wi-geocaching.com.
I also agree that, despite the delays, the BOD did follow the process outlined and agreed upon. I would point out, however, the specific lines concerning the final adoption and approval of the logo chosen by the body. It is clear to me that the BOD had the final say in the process and it is precisely this reason why the final decision took so long. I appreciate that the BOD put more weight behind the choice of the voting body than their own personal preferences. This is all commendable. I wish however, that more weight would have been given to the thing itself and voices of the professionals who know a thing or two about the process and what makes not only for a clean bold logo, but a strong distinctive one.
Forget the legal stuff, the purpose of branding is to create a recognizable identity, independent of others out there that compete for your attention. Now, here’s where I will agree with much of the “who really cares if it looks like the WA logo”. Nobody will. We aren’t looking to get members to cancel their membership with Washington Geocaching Association nor they from us. I have come down hard on the similarity issue, but only from the standpoint of looking at the process from the eye of someone in the trade. The similarity issue would have been the end of this logo a long time ago. Part of any logo design process is to see what else is out there, for similar companies, so we don’t end creating a similar looking logo.
The point I have been trying to make is about the quantitative nature of the logo, not the quality of it. Yes, it’s clean, bold. What it isn’t is expressive about what the WGA is. You could substitute any word for “geocaching” under the graphic element and the logo as a whole would be just as good for a dozen other associations in Wisconsin. You should not be able to do this with a strong logo. The nature of the business it represents should be intrinsically tied to the graphic elements. From a designer’s standpoint, this is a really weak logo. The previous one at least communicated some elements of the sport and had a little motion. Not only does our new one not tell a story about who we are, but it also conveys NO sense of the excitement of the sport, NO joy of caching in and with Wisconsin geocachers – there’s not a shred of motion or energy in it at all.
Now, you might think it’s a tall order for some simple graphics to do this but it is exactly the kind of design directive that we, as logo designers, base our concepts on to create outstanding logos.
Humor me and look at the Geocaching logo for a second. What do you see? Bright colors, motion, action, excitement, a goal, success, completion, fun. It’s all there. There’s no G, there’s actually nothing in the logo “bug” itself that identifies it with geocaching.com. And yet, it is VERY STRONG logo. If you saw this logo once for the first time, you’d be curious to know what it stands for. See it ten times and you instantly recognize it, even if you’re 50′ away from a guy sporting it on a baseball cap. I would argue that the WGA letters and the outline of Wisconsin are superfelous and repetitive. We spell it out underneath, don’t we? I’m being a little tongue-in-cheak here but imagine a pair of muddy boots and a walking stick above or next to the words. Imagine a backpack with a GPS, a flashlight and a bottle of water sticking out and the letters WGA embroidered on it. My point is you can communicate a sense of exploration and adventure with very little by way of graphics.
I hope now have a better appreciation for the reason why I am not happy about the outcome of this process. If I had the money, I’d submit to 99designs right now, just to show all of you what we could have gotten for strong logo options.
Now, here’s a proposal. This is the one we voted on as members and the number one choice. We could submit the project for $150 bucks to 99designs and see what comes to us in a week. Then we put it up to a vote between our new logo and the best 5 options from logo designers, similar to the way our existing logo was put up against the top 3. I’d say put it to a vote of the body. Conduct a poll. See if more that 50% are unhappy with the final choice and would like to see a round done by logo designers at the cost of $150, the minimum award on 99designs.com.
S|S
Your not alone, I have voiced my opinion about this issue many times too and im sure everyone is sick of hearing from me also. I agree with your last post, we should go with 99designs and see what could come from them, so the total bill of the logo design is up to $250 still a cheep bill for a graphic designer
Barry of sweetlife
It’s obvious that S|S is very passionate about graphic design. I certainly don’t want to start an argument here, but I have to disagree with his assessment of what makes a good logo. I can come up with dozens of logos that are recognizeable a country mile away that express little of the companies they represent.
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These are all little more than letters, yet each is very distinctive and easily identifiable. They also work well for printing or silk screening, which is a major concern for WGA.
As for the four square Geocaching logo; yes it has color and motion, but I’ve never been able to figure out what that guy is yelling about… Is there any relevance to the colors, or are they just there because they look pretty? (It’s the latter.) What does the circle represent? The flag I get…
The original Geocaching logo was very expressive of the sport, but it was also way to “busy”.Once again, this is all just food for discussion.
Part of this issue is the fact that we as individuals have different hot buttons. No matter what would have been selected for the logo, there would be dissent. The BOD has made a decision, and we should be willing to accept it. A long winded defense of the logos that did not make the cut, that finished second is doing nothing to promote the new logo. It is now ours, accept it and play the game… It is time to move on.
Defending the decision.
@Team Black-Cat wrote:
It’s obvious that S|S is very passionate about graphic design. I certainly don’t want to start an argument here, but I have to disagree with his assessment of what makes a good logo. I can come up with dozens of logos that are recognizable a country mile away that express little of the companies they represent.
These are all little more than letters, yet each is very distinctive and easily identifiable.
I am not trying to have an arguement, but have a discussion about what makes for a strong logo and why I don’t think our new one is.
Thanks for these examples. Let me break them down a bit (from my standpoint):
1. GM – What does this communicate? Class, style, precision, motion, quality, fluidity, smoothness. All qualities I want in a car that I might buy from GM. Many car company logos employ some chrome-like embossing and fluid lines to represent the deep sensual emotions that chrome elicits. Now, arguably, GM could have a crappy logo (see TBS), and still be recognized because of market saturation.
2. IBM – The inspiration for IBM’s logo was part early dot matrix printing which had visible lines running through solids colors and part LCD monitors whose characters were also broken by lines. Can anyone deny that the IBM logo uniquely represents early computing and printing? It has everything to do with the company and business machines.
3. I don’t recognize or know this logo. What is the National Network? This one fails for me since I don’t recognize it and apparently I should. A network for what?
4. This is a really poor logo. Sure, we recognize it, but only because we are saturated with it in various media to the point where we can’t help but recognize it. Perhaps that’s why TBS recently re-branded themselves as being “very funny” with a much softer, friendlier logo that looks like a smiley face?
They also work well for printing or silk screening, which is a major concern for WGA.
I’d argue that deespite GM’s strong and instantly recognizable logo, that it’s not easy for someone to silkscreen the gradients in it using solid block of color.
As for the four square Geocaching logo; yes it has color and motion, but I’ve never been able to figure out what that guy is yelling about… Is there any relevance to the colors, or are they just there because they look pretty? (It’s the latter.) What does the circle represent? The flag I get…
The original Geocaching logo was very expressive of the sport, but it was also way to “busy”.Might the guy not be “excited” that he found the cache? “Hootie!” The circle represents the journey to get there and that caching involves a treasure-hunt type quest. That’s what dotted lines and “x” makes the spot represent to us from our early childhood and our first pirate stories. It’s unmistakable. The flag has more to do with early GPS caching iconography, but to this day we still see the pinheads on our handhelds and iPhones for GZ. The colors to me represent caching in all seasons, part of what I tried to incorporate in my logo entry. There simply aren’t that many outdoor sports that are doable “year-round” and it’s part of what makes geocaching so appealing. Anytime, anywhere. Green=summer, Yellow=spring, Orange=fall, Blue=winter. It’s not a stretch to think some someone put thought into the color choices. Everything about that logo is deliberate. It communicates so much on so many levels it’s hard to deny its effectiveness on a subconscious level. Please, tell me what our new logo would communicate to someone not familiar with the sport? Something outdoorsy perhaps that happens in Wisconsin, maybe hunting related. That’s about all I get out of it if I try to look at it from an outsiders perspective.
I am not arguing about the merits of any of the other options, I am simply trying to communicate why our new logo is a poor choice to represent the WGA.
Ok, I picked the styleized GM logo because I couldn’t find a smaller one, but this is GM. I don’t see motion, fluidity, or smoothness. Just letters.
I’ll concede the IBM one, but by your definition, it means “We’re old and don’t want to upgrade”.
The new TBS logo is more than just letters now… But, I could still find dozens more that say nothing, but are still instantly recognizable.
The “X” represents the grid of the original logo, which was “inspired” from a no defunct website call sixdegrees.com. The colors were picked because they looked good. I guess my brain just doesn’t work that way, but other than the flag, I can’t get geocaching from the current GC logo. And why is that guy YELLING AT ME?!?
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