Wednesday 22 June 2016

A Picture Worth A Thousand Words. And Bucks!



Following is a presentation (here with minor clarifications) made to the Committee of the Whole (COW), 20 June, 2016, concerning the new logo/slogan of Nelson and Kootenay Lake Tourism (NKLT).
In addition there are thoughts about the NKLT's response in the same COW.




Boring Nelson
Unfortunately for Nelson the new logo and slogan are no improvement over the previous ones. Does anyone remember those? The new ones also fail to make Nelson appear unique.

Being unique: key to tourism-bucks anywhere.

Logo
A logo is a face: a pictograph identifying a product, service, place over another with - ideally - must-buy visual impact. It is a determinant in product-, service-, or place-recognition. When strong: potential customers relate positively - curious and eager to buy. When weak: the target-market relates indifferently - reluctant to buy and apt to go with a more focused zap somewhere else.

This Logo
If the new logo - pointlessly jumbled - were not including the word Tourism it might just as easily represent a contractor or plumber. There is no sensitivity, oneness with Nelson, its people and environment. The colorless design as a whole is boring.
This logo is weak.




Slogan
A slogan is a catchy marker in words - a catch phrase. It may be an addition to the visuals of a logo. Ideally slogan/logo form a compelling whole.

This Slogan's Visuals
Visually Free Spirits & Well-Rounded Squares is no different from the logo. The freedom of these spirits is fixed within a soft-drink label; the well-rounded squares are to be found on the same construction-site - and just as boring.

This Slogan's Message
Plans of free spirits probably are not predetermined by a tour(ism)-guide. 
How free can you bee?
If squares refers to the opposite of free spirits: square vs. hip went out of use decades ago. Nobody refers to squares any longer - not even squares! There must be a segment of the NKLT's target-market which has no idea what's meant by squares. Having been around the block a few times - I am well-familiar with that label, but I have never heard of well-rounded squares. 

Confusing  a target-audience means losing them even before they can be hooked - never mind reeled-in.

Also - well-rounded or not - categorizing potential tourists as squares is patronizing.
This slogan is weak.



Seeing that Nelson depends on tourism, and City Hall enables funding for the NKLT to promote us: it would have been more appropriate to present logo and slogan to Council (or just about anybody not connected to the NKLT) for input before locking them in - not after, whereby not giving outsiders the opportunity for feedback!
It also would have been more constructive to have Nelson participate actively in producing logo/slogan. As done with the Canadian flag, stamps, Olympic logos/slogans.

For a truly inspiring logo and one of the best-known globally: see Joan Miro's of 1983 for Spanish tourism. A piece of art and still affective today!


 
  
Here presented reincarnations of Nelson's logo/slogan only connect with each other by their unimaginative heavy-handedness. Neither singly nor together are they likely to inspire an increase in tourism to Nelson and the Kootenay Lake area.

They are not who we are!

Nelson is not boring!


   




















After the presentation to the COW - Dianna Ducs, NKLT, explains that the logo is kept simple because it will often be used together with a picture of beautiful scenery. Sometimes even without the word Tourism. The latter making even less a logo and more unattractive, non-specific location-signage.
Her explanation for/of the double-slogan is that there are many different kinds of tourists coming, even some who may not know the meaning of well-rounded squares but never mind that's okay too. The logic of this escapes.





Clearly - the NKLT is not cognizant of the purpose and power of a logo/slogan as clearly and tightly self-contained tool. Particularly relevant today - with rapid, often truncated communication in visual flash and sound-byte. Instant recognition and time is money more so than ever before. 

A major opportunity here continued to be missed and at least as long as this new combo is in promotional use. Possibly years - like the previous ones. Opportunity missed in the tourism-industry equals fewer tourists! 








Jakob Dulisse
NKLT
goodlogo.com
tothewire.wordpress.com  

Wednesday 15 June 2016

The Goat-Machine



I love Japanese Knotweed! Yes, I know..... regardless...!

Every morning - on my rounds at Lakeside Park - I pass a stretch of the stuff along the fence of the little woodsy hideaway - between the Seeds greenhouse and the playground - which by rights should be mine.

I love the relentless energy driving lush foliage up and across at great speed - seemingly ever taller and farther overnight.

Karen MacDonald - she of all things green - plans to deal with the issue once-and-for-all come fall.




The University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) very earnestly lets loose 65(!?!) goats on a six-by-six-meter Knotweed spread, 2 meters high. The goats munch their way across the patch within 45 minutes. Just the leaves, though. With 65 this shouldn't be a surprise - in fact, what takes them so long! What should surprise the lab-coats - with goats usually eating just about anything - why they don't eat the juicy stems. Whatever - this goat-machine clearly does not present a long-term solution to the Knotweed problem: stems and roots remain uneaten, and all will be back to normal real quick.
Another thing surprise surprise! When the UFV goats are done with the weed they get going on what grows next to it. And next to that!
Conclusion of this experiment (should be!): Goats will be goats. And Japanese Knotweed will remain Japanese Knotweed.


Which takes me to Hohhot in Inner Mongolia/China where - in the mid-90s - I teach public health issues, doctor/patient relationships and Qi Gong at the Inner Mongolia Medical College.
Hohhot is Mongolian for Blue City, because a long time ago here are many clear streams; the steppes sway with luxuriant grass and wildflowers; mountains are thickly covered with healthy trees; the sky has a deep clarity. From farther away - all has a silvery-blue shimmer.
Shaman originate here - they are the conduit between the mongke tengeri/eternal sky: as father - and fruit-bearing earth: as mother.
Sa man riding their drums.

















Then nomads begin to cluster in villages; they become sedentary. And drums sound louder and more insistent! Sheep and goats overgraze pastures close-by and farther and farther away; trees are cut-down for building-material and firewood. Leading to erosion. To eventually turn silvery-blue shimmer into dry hardscrabble. The predictable usual.
Sheep and goats remain. Continuing to eat anything-nothing!
Sometimes - to Westerners - the Chinese zodiak seems to call the Year of the Goat also Year of the Ram. That comes from - except for cashmere from specific goats and mutton/yang rou - clearly from sheep - to Chinese a goat being a mountain-sheep/shan yang.



 
The 90s are early days in Beijing's recognition that desertification in the north is a threat to itself as China's capitol and calling-card. Dust-storms up there have been common around April/May - they are becoming more frequent a few hundred km farther south in Beijing.





So - for years now planting trees in the north to put a stop to all this has been the thing to do. Today with while not enough success.

Taking me back to Hohhot.
And goats.





Every year college freshmen are for a day taken to the same village and the same hill to plant trees: this well-recorded by TV and newspapers as the good fight against rapid desertification-creep.
For the students it's all great fun and funny. Fun because it means a day of no classes and funny because of this:



















The villagers - with their few goats locked-up somewhere not to get in the way - quietly watch the annual ritual unfold: students are led up the same barren hill as last year's batch. To plant the little trees they carry in their little bags. We are not talking hundreds here at great speed - and for good reasons. They also carry short sticks.
Instructions are to somehow get their trees into the ground. This is not easy because there's no topsoil: that was all blown away as dust a long time ago - and what's left is sun-baked clay, rocks, pebbles and patchy dust-pockets. So students - telegenically dirty in no time - hack, drill, stab, poke holes into the ground with their sticks, pop in trees and perfunctorily fill the holes with clay-bits, pebbles, dust to just keep treelets upright. For the cameras, possibly moms watching this on TV.
There's no water for these trees!
Students finishing first are interviewed by the media on how it feels to fight the desert - for Beijing. It feels just great!
And when all is done students and media-types get back on their buses and take off, drinking a lot of Fanta on the way back to Hohhot. Aaah! To a job well done!

  


Here comes the funny part. The students know that as soon as they are gone villagers bring their goats up the hill and have them eat every single tree just planted - because in this heat, without water up here and hardly any rain ever - these trees don't stand a chance.

So - planting trees is good!






This one's for Karen!




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