Director of strategy and all things clever and witty here at Brand DNA, Peter Singline was quoted in this article in today’s B&T about the new City of  Melbourne brand identity. Pete also penned a sharp article on the matter which has been faithfully reproduced in today’s news (see below), complete with a pic of Pete’s handsome scone. Click on the pic to view the original article.

In his article Pete questions the motives of our great Mayor in selecting an interstate brand agency to create a new brand mark for our fair city. He poses the question, was Cr Doyle in fact smarter than the rest of us and the decision a masterstroke of strategic genius? We think probably not.

The Value of Design
Unfortunately in the first article Pete was quoted alongside the dubious folks at Design Bay, who have set the debate around the value of design back a decade by seriously suggesting the project could have been run as a design competition with a $10,000 prize for the winner, the final choice made by popular vote of the people. At a time when we are all working diligently to demonstrate the commercial value of brand and design, the idea of 50 designers working tens of thousands of dollars worth of hours each for a total payment to the design community of $10,000 is beyond the pale.

Ah-well, as they say; ‘you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose who you share the media with’.