One of the logos created by a student at Quinte Secondary School for the 150th Ontario celebration. Courtesy of Quinte Secondary School.
By Selena Steele-Clough [1]
BELLEVILLE – Ontario’s 150th birthday [2] celebration logo has already been made, but if the provincial government was looking to improve it, Quinte Secondary School [3] students have it covered.
Pete Hercus, who has been teaching at Quinte Secondary for ten years, assigned his students in a photography class to come up with a better logo.
Hercus wasn’t impressed with the original logo created for the celebration, saying that “it wasn’t a good effort on their part”.
During a practical exam, Hercus wanted his students to demonstrate that they can solve a problem by using Photoshop to create different logos.
“Especially during exams, I like to have real life situations for my students to work on,” he said.
Hercus told QNet News that some of the students wanted to make sure they had the best representation of Ontario by including traditional symbols like the maple leaf and the CN Tower.
“We talked about symbology for this logo and how important it is that it symbolizes the 150th celebration,” said Hercus.
The Ontario 150th logo that critics are not to happy about. Courtesy of government of Ontario.
The original Ontario 150th logo cost the government $30,000 including the design, licensing and trademark.
Hercus and his students are not alone with agreeing that province needs to spend a little more time on the logo.
Marketing experts in an article in the Toronto Star [4] raised issues with the province’s 150th logo saying it’s “not clear and it’s not clean.”
Hercus said that they should have asked for public submissions just like they did for the Canada 150th logo. [5]
“If they asked for submissions all across the province, the absolute level of artwork would of been outstanding”, he said. “It’s such a huge celebration and it should be about incorporating the people and the province.”