Kelowna

Kelowna City Manager, Ron Mattiussi, knows you can't please everybody.

With that, the city unveiled its new corporate logo Thursday, a project which has been in the works for almost two years.

The city poured $80,000 into the logo, comprised of: $35,000 for community consultation and research, $10,000 for logo development and another $35,000 for the Visual Standards Guide, which deals with how this logo is going to be used.

"It is really going to a part of everything that we do, in all of our buildings and all of our activities," says Mattiussi.

"But, when you work in the public sector long enough you know that at least 10% is going to hate it and wonder why we did it."

Mattiussi says City Council approved the budget a few years ago and spread the cost over two separate budget years.

He says the entire process, including the public consultation is the price of doing business and something which had to be done.

"I am never going to apologize for including the public in a process to define what the city means to them. That's the cost of doing business."

The new design replaces the old logo which features three stick figure people standing near the downtown Sails.

It features a circular design with stylized red, yellow, green and blue colours around the inside of the circle.

"Every citizen in Kelowna that has walked through the forest and picked up a pine cone and looked at the bottom there's the logo," says Mattiussi in describing the new design.

"Now add the colours of the rainbow with a lake at the bottom and the sun at the top and that's the logo."

Mattiussi says the logo is, in many respects, like a piece of art.

"We invest a lot of money in public art, but people say some of it doesn't look like anything so it is very difficult to make everyone happy.

"I think it is a very strong symbol. It is a circle and for all the reasons why we talked about is why that circle is a powerful symbol."

While the logo is being unveiled at a time when its citizens are facing 12% unemployment, Mattiussi reiterates the process began when the economy was booming.

"Absolutely we know it's a recession, we deal with that every day. The process started over two years ago and the money was put away during a boom because that (previous) logo was 14 years old and it was time to make a change."

Mattiussi adds the city will not be converting everything to the new look overnight.

As for stationery, business cards and the like, Mattiussi says the change will happen as the need arises.