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Ontario's trillium gets a make-over
$219,000 revamp blasted as `waste'
Jun. 23, 2006. 11:23 AM
ROBERT BENZIE
QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU CHIEF
thestar.com
The Liberal government has quietly replaced the traditional Ontario trillium logo dating back to 1964 with a version of the flower similar to the party's trademark.
In a move opposition critics blasted as "a waste of money" at a time when Premier Dalton McGuinty's administration is running a deficit, the stylized trillium has been radically changed.
Gone is the classic T-shaped rendition of the official provincial flower introduced by Progressive Conservative premier John Robarts 42 years ago.
In its place is a more detailed A-shaped trillium that is eerily similar to one that appears in the dot on the "i" in the Ontario Liberal Party's three-year-old logo.
Bensimon Byrne, a Liberal-friendly advertising firm, designed the new provincial logo at a cost of $219,000. The agency's Peter Byrne created the Liberals' 2003 election ads, including the now-infamous spot featuring McGuinty saying: "I won't raise your taxes."
Government Services Minister Gerry Phillips defended the logo revamp, saying it wouldn't cost taxpayers much since stationery, government documents and signs will be replaced gradually over the course of years.
"As we do something new, we're going to bring it in. We won't be going out taking old signs down. It's just as we redo any sign, we'll start," Phillips told the Toronto Star.
"It'll be a long evolutionary period," he said, adding the new logo first appeared in little-noticed ads in March.
"This is the fourth time the trillium has changed since it came in. You look at it and say, `Is it still contemporary or not, can we refresh the thing?'" he said, noting the 1964 design was modified slightly in 1972, 1994 and 2002.
But the new trillium is the most drastic redesign ever.
"The feeling was, we want to retain the trillium: Is there a way to modernize it a little bit? That's the purpose of it. It's just making sure that the government looks like a contemporary government," he said.
Phillips, the architect of legislation banning partisan political advertising by governments, insisted it's just coincidental that it resembles the Liberal rendition of Ontario's official flower.
"It's more like the NDP logo," he said.
But Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory accused the Liberals of playing politics with an icon.
"What a waste of money. When they talk about not tearing down signs, if they're not going to change anything, why would they do it? They will make new letterhead. They will make new business cards. They will change a whole bunch of things," Tory predicted.
"This is political manipulation of the highest order. They've tried to make the logo of Ontario, which has stood in place for almost 50 years, look like their own partisan logo," Tory said.
"This should be something that's protected and is the property of the Legislature to change," he added. "I believe in tradition in some of these areas and if the logo has stood the test of time for Ontario for (almost) 50 years, why do these guys feel the need to change it?"
NDP Leader Howard Hampton questioned the way the change was made.
"This is the kind of stuff that Dalton McGuinty used to scream murder about if the Conservatives even considered something like this," said Hampton. "To pay a Liberal-friendly ad firm (more than) $200,000 to simply take the Ontario trillium and flip it so it looks like the Ontario Liberal Party trillium ... goes beyond absurd."
Hampton also rejected Phillips' suggestion there was a similarity between the new trillium and the NDP flower.
"We would never try to appropriate Ontario's symbol to make it look like our political symbol."
The Star's Ian Urquhart first disclosed in January 2005 that the Liberals were pondering "re-branding" Ontario. But since that time, other than issuing a request for competing bids on the project, which was won by Bensimon Byrne, there has been nary a peep from the Liberals about the changes.
In the year after the Liberals took power in the fall of 2003, Bensimon Byrne won $6.3 million in government advertising contracts, compared with $99,900 in the final year the Tory government held power.
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Is that supposed to be a trillium? Looks more like a triangle to me. Another piece of good, clean design bites the dust.
$219,000 revamp blasted as `waste'
Jun. 23, 2006. 11:23 AM
ROBERT BENZIE
QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU CHIEF
thestar.com
The Liberal government has quietly replaced the traditional Ontario trillium logo dating back to 1964 with a version of the flower similar to the party's trademark.
In a move opposition critics blasted as "a waste of money" at a time when Premier Dalton McGuinty's administration is running a deficit, the stylized trillium has been radically changed.
Gone is the classic T-shaped rendition of the official provincial flower introduced by Progressive Conservative premier John Robarts 42 years ago.
In its place is a more detailed A-shaped trillium that is eerily similar to one that appears in the dot on the "i" in the Ontario Liberal Party's three-year-old logo.
Bensimon Byrne, a Liberal-friendly advertising firm, designed the new provincial logo at a cost of $219,000. The agency's Peter Byrne created the Liberals' 2003 election ads, including the now-infamous spot featuring McGuinty saying: "I won't raise your taxes."
Government Services Minister Gerry Phillips defended the logo revamp, saying it wouldn't cost taxpayers much since stationery, government documents and signs will be replaced gradually over the course of years.
"As we do something new, we're going to bring it in. We won't be going out taking old signs down. It's just as we redo any sign, we'll start," Phillips told the Toronto Star.
"It'll be a long evolutionary period," he said, adding the new logo first appeared in little-noticed ads in March.
"This is the fourth time the trillium has changed since it came in. You look at it and say, `Is it still contemporary or not, can we refresh the thing?'" he said, noting the 1964 design was modified slightly in 1972, 1994 and 2002.
But the new trillium is the most drastic redesign ever.
"The feeling was, we want to retain the trillium: Is there a way to modernize it a little bit? That's the purpose of it. It's just making sure that the government looks like a contemporary government," he said.
Phillips, the architect of legislation banning partisan political advertising by governments, insisted it's just coincidental that it resembles the Liberal rendition of Ontario's official flower.
"It's more like the NDP logo," he said.
But Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory accused the Liberals of playing politics with an icon.
"What a waste of money. When they talk about not tearing down signs, if they're not going to change anything, why would they do it? They will make new letterhead. They will make new business cards. They will change a whole bunch of things," Tory predicted.
"This is political manipulation of the highest order. They've tried to make the logo of Ontario, which has stood in place for almost 50 years, look like their own partisan logo," Tory said.
"This should be something that's protected and is the property of the Legislature to change," he added. "I believe in tradition in some of these areas and if the logo has stood the test of time for Ontario for (almost) 50 years, why do these guys feel the need to change it?"
NDP Leader Howard Hampton questioned the way the change was made.
"This is the kind of stuff that Dalton McGuinty used to scream murder about if the Conservatives even considered something like this," said Hampton. "To pay a Liberal-friendly ad firm (more than) $200,000 to simply take the Ontario trillium and flip it so it looks like the Ontario Liberal Party trillium ... goes beyond absurd."
Hampton also rejected Phillips' suggestion there was a similarity between the new trillium and the NDP flower.
"We would never try to appropriate Ontario's symbol to make it look like our political symbol."
The Star's Ian Urquhart first disclosed in January 2005 that the Liberals were pondering "re-branding" Ontario. But since that time, other than issuing a request for competing bids on the project, which was won by Bensimon Byrne, there has been nary a peep from the Liberals about the changes.
In the year after the Liberals took power in the fall of 2003, Bensimon Byrne won $6.3 million in government advertising contracts, compared with $99,900 in the final year the Tory government held power.
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Is that supposed to be a trillium? Looks more like a triangle to me. Another piece of good, clean design bites the dust.
