An Honest Logo

A logo is a truly important aspect for an organisation or a business. It acts as a brand, a 'go-to image', customers relate to the logo, and the logo itself provides characteristics that epitomise the company or organisation that it represents; an effective logo sums up the body that it represents.

This post focuses on an ethical dilemma that I faced towards my third segment of my placement at Northway Christian Centre. You see, for a couple months now we have planned a huge outreach style event for our community that would be held in our suburbs local community park. The event would be held just before Christmas and would have a large stage for live music and acts on the Saturday evening. The event would cater for over 2000 people and would lead into Sunday's morning church service for a 'Church in the Park' atmosphere. However, the main attraction for the event was the fact that on the Saturday, we are giving out over 1000 toys to the children of our community for free! What a spectacle this will be!

This is where the dilemma occurs... The event is purposely named very similarly to a famous animation movie (which is OK!), however the logo that was created by the graphic designer also resembles the logo for that particular movie all to well... Once I had caught eye of the logo I immediately (and professionally) approached the designer and questioned the ethics behind the design. They saw no reason to change the font, the colours or the  shapes that all formed the overall imagery and depiction of the logo. I insisted that the logo that he/she created would in fact be considered copyright infringement as Northway would be seen by the movie company to have been stealing their identity and using it to further benefit our cause. This could result in legal matters and that is the last thing a church needs as their latest communication to the world! Also the last thing we need our congregation (internal members) to associate/identify their leadership/management with. A couple weeks went by, and I was able to convince the graphic designer to meet with a media law expert to examine what would be considered right or wrong about our logo before it was published. The issues with the logo were sorted and everyone learnt a valuable lesson (including myself).

The graphic designer and I are actually best friends... It was hard remaining professional in this matter with  dealing with them, but it proved to be worthwhile as the situation not only improved our professional relationship, but also our personal relationship and respect for one another.

I hope this post helps some of you that are still working in your placements and are currently having similar ethical issues as I did. It is always worth it to do the right and honest thing! The last thing you need is to be left questioning yourself and your own personal beliefs!

Thanks for reading.

Thor Williams

13971186

Curtin Bentley