Since it’s release last year, Montreal’s new logo design has attracted a lot of attention and controversy from all over the city. Intended to represent our beautiful city and to attract tourists here from all over the world, our Montreal logo design is now a fun, multi-coloured ‘M’ logo design accompanied by a new slogan ("L'espace pour se réaliser” in French; “Greater Montréal: Room to make it real” in English).
This new ‘M’ logo design is the image that we, Montrealers, present to the world. It is supposed to be modern, stylized and appealing to international tourists. It is supposed to tell our story and sell our beautiful city to the rest of the world.
Does this new logo design really do our city justice?
The Gazette has described the new Montreal logo design as a "patchwork of hot pink, tangerine, rhubarb, turquoise and green apple” while the Journal de Montréal expressed their disapproval of the overall cost of the new logo design by publishing the design under an article with the heading, "Where do your taxes go?”. In contrast, Sammy Forcillo, a Montreal city councillor, tried to be defend the new Montreal logo design by saying, "Everyone has their own opinion on art."
What do you think?
Montreal’s new logo design cost the city a whopping $487,000 with an additional budget of $200,000 allotted to the promotion of the new logo design worldwide over the next few years. Personally, I think that this is a ridiculous price tag for our city’s new logo design. I understand that it is important to invest in a new logo design for our city and I also agree that we should be willing to invest significantly in its proper development however, Quebecers are already the most highly taxed people in North America. Is it really necessary to waste nearly half a million dollars of taxpayers money on a new logo design? This, quite simply, is too much. Montreal is a beautiful city filled with hundreds of talented artists and graphic designers. Why didn’t the city reach out to our local talent and ask them to come up with a new logo design for the city? They could have held a huge, citywide logo design contest with a prize of a few thousand dollars. This would have brought together Montreal as a community and saved the city thousands of dollars.
I am not at all thrilled with the overall look of the logo design either. I do think that the logo succeeded at being fun and playful however, I don’t find it to be particularly creative or representative of Montreal and our unique culture. In fact, I find it rather boring and plain even amidst its crayola coloring. Finally, I don’t think that the logo’s English slogan (“Greater Montréal: Room to make it real”) really makes any sense either. What does “real” mean anyways? The logo fairs a little better in French ("L'espace pour se réaliser”), but I still think that for half a million dollars, they could have come up with something a little better. Non?