To the Editor,
Re: School district designs new logo, Sept. 11.
I thought this school district, like many others, was strapped for cash.
Apparently not, since it can afford $25,000 to engage a Vancouver firm to design a new “graphic identity”.
At a time of cutbacks in education affecting students and staff, this seems remarkably frivolous. A school district is not a business, is not competing for customers and hardly needs a graphic identity at all.
But, if a change is wanted, why not make use of the artistic talent so readily apparent in our schools? I’ve seen excellent work by students in both elementary and secondary schools, and I’m sure they could produce a logo at no cost at all and also design something more imaginative than the few wavy blue lines that are so fashionable among graphic designers.
Paying a Vancouver firm to do what many of our talented students could do is not only wasteful, but insulting.
The $25,000 is surely not all that will be spent, either. How much will it cost to print new stationery? Since the school district also, for some reason, wants to be known as “Nanaimo-Ladysmith Public Schools”, there will be further costs, such as repainting buses.
Only when every educational priority has been met should money be spent on such trivial matters as image makeovers.
Gregory Roscow
Nanaimo