District of Lantzville adopts new logo

The District of Lantzville has a new logo.

Lantzville councillors voted 5-2 to adopt a brand-new logo during a council meeting on Monday night. The new logo features the word Lantzville written in a calligraphic style with wave above it made out of individual pieces of sea glass. The slogan ‘Love life here’ is written below the word Lantzville.

While councillors adopted the new logo, a timeline of when it will begin appearing on district documents and around the community is unknown.

Trudy Coates, the district’s director of corporate administration, said she’s held off ordering letterhead and other supplies with the existing district logo on it. She said the plan is for staff members to continue on with “business as usual” and replace the old logo when they can.

“There really is no increase on cost for the letterhead and envelopes,” she said. “I think for the business cards it was another $10. So it is already in the funding.”

During Monday’s meeting, Caroll Taiji, president of Taiji Brand Group, the group tasked with creating a brand for Lantzville, presented the logo to councillors. She said the logo is the result of months of consultation with residents and represented Lantzville in the best possible way. She said the idea of sea glass came from a resident during the online public engagement phase and that the font used is “100 per cent” unique.

Coun. Will Geselbracht, a member of the district’s economic development strategic plan and community branding select committee, said the process of creating the logo was a lot of fun and special. He said sea glass represents something important to him, explaining that he has a jar of sea glass at home that his mother collected.

“She would be down at Sebastion Beach during the summer walking along the tide looking for the sea glass,” he said. “That jar is special and that is why this logo really resonated with me and I think it just a fantastic idea. I can see that right on the building here.”

Coun. Bob Colclough said he believes the logo really has “the feel” of Lantzville to it. He said he was extremely pleased with the process that Taiji went through to come up with the logo.

“It was just a very healthy and positive process,” he said.

Coun. Dot Neary said she went through a similar rebranding process while she was a Nanaimo-Ladysmith school trustee. She said based on Taiji’s presentation, it sounded like the Lantzville’s logo developed in a far more organic matter.

“I just love hearing about how this came to be because it really is a representation of the community and I am way happier with this brand … than I was in my previous experience and I think we probably have achieved something really iconic here,” she said, adding that she is very passionate about the new logo and loves the lettering and slogans and felt the sea glass could also be interpreted as pebbles on a beach.

But not every council member was happy with the new logo. Lantzville Mayor Colin Haime said he liked the font and tag line of the new logo, but struggled with the sea glass portion of it.

“Characterizing a broken piece of glass these days with the whole beach thing and beach clean up, etc., and I realize the reality is there is glass on the beach, I really worry about that being something we are kind of hanging our hat on. To me it possibly encourages people to do that, as crazy as it sounds, kids and that sort of thing. That’s where I struggle,” Haime said, adding that sea glass is simply just well-worn garbage.

Coun. John Coulson said for him, the logo and the slogans would have resonated with him five years ago, but not anymore.

“After four years on council, I am not feeling it right now, sorry,” Coulson said.

Speaking to the News Bulletin afterwards, Taiji said the biggest challenge in creating a logo was convincing the community that her team could create a brand that would reflect Lantzville.

“People were very afraid that we were creating a marketing spin and really what we were trying to do was reflect what the community is and what the community wants to be,” she said. “We had to have lots of conversations about that with people.”

Councillor Coulson and mayor Haime voted against adopting the logo.