It is a source of great pride that our work continues to be validated by industry peers and more importantly, by our clients who consistently refuse to junk exciting ideas to satisfy cautious critics.

The winning work will be published in the Chinese design journal ‘New Graphic’. Edited & planned by Seecoo Culture Communication, since 2004, ‘New Graphic’ has become representative of influential design in China.

Related works:

1. Personal work influenced by survivors of the Haiti disaster

I won’t comment on the aesthetics of the new symbol, as I feel this is irrelevant. Logo design is not about ‘sexy graphics’, its purpose is to identify and (to a lesser extent) communicate, rather than decorate. Instead I will focus on the process used to commission the work – which in my opinion was flawed.

Using a ‘creative cattle-call’ to commission an identity for an important institution like the Labour Party signals contempt for the creative industry. Nothing quite demonstrates this as well as luring creative types into donating their work for free, paying what you want to pay for one (as opposed to the designer’s going rate) and keeping the rest of the entries. Furthermore, this does not seem like an efficient way of rewarding a sector that contributes millions to Malta’s economy and is bound to have many worried about the Labour Party’s vision for our industry.

Let’s forget about the rights and wrongs of it for a minute. In order for crowd sourcing to function, one must assume that the crowd contains the necessary talent to get the job done. The reality is that in Malta, even amongst people that are invested in the creative process, the pool of talent successfully creating this kind of work is very small. This is to be expected. How many truly great tenors, stand up comedians, actors and ballet dancers can be found on the island? Expecting Malta to have a surplus of brilliant, charismatic creatives is unrealistic to say the least.

Even if we assume an abundance of amazing talent, the process used would still have been flawed. You see, contrary to popular belief, any successful communications project does not begin with creativity. Creativity is a capacity for coming at problems in new ways and perceiving connections that others might miss. In order to facilitate this process, creativity must be fed by intelligence about existing beliefs and how you would like to alter them.

The submissions document for this exercise did not indicate anywhere near enough information to feed this process. It did specify that the new logo needed to retain the torch (from the old logo) as a key element. Surely this isn’t the best way to communicate change (I’m assuming this is why a new logo was required)?

Without clear messaging objectives, I’m curious about how the final selection was judged. According to the submissions document, the chosen identity had to make it through two different committees.

Ouch!

Think about all the truly great ideas that are generated in the world. Do they come from crowds? No, quite the opposite. Generally, crowds fear new ideas and take a long time to adopt/recognise them. Assuming that any of the submitted solutions were excellent, filtering them through 2 different committees and a round of SMS voting guarantees a superficial result based on personal preferences rather than substance and appropriateness.

The purpose of a committee is to make important decisions by sharing responsibilty between members. Since nobody is soley responsible, the burden of consequence of the work becomes diluted and the result is usually the lowest common denominator, rather than the optimum solution.

Creative professionals take on a responsibility to develop this type of work and must be competent enough to be accountable for it. The success of projects like this require the same responsibility on the client side. When only one side of the client/designer relationship is behaving responsibly, the work will have little chance of success.

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If you have an opinion about this, we’d love to hear from you (please use our comments form). We’re all for subjectivity but not at the expense of courtesy, respect and good manners – please keep this in mind.

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The first is a monogram for financial consultant, Mark Vella Bonanno. It is formed from his initials – MVB.

Gestalt Psychotherapist – Linda Åklundh approached us to create a new identity that would communicate the benefits of her new ‘business coaching’ venture. Our solution was to develop a composition of stick figures – working in harmony towards a shared goal. At the same time, the new symbol suggests the Swedish letter Å.

Of the 3, my personal favourite is a proposed symbol for the European Bully Kennel Club. It is created from 5 kennel symbols arranged in such a way that they also suggest a 5 pointed star. The identity needed to be versatile and legible, as it would also be used in conjunction with other graphic components – at various sizes.

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The island has been taken to the European Court of Justice for allowing the spring hunting of Turtle Dove and Quail since it joined the EU in 2004 but the authorities have still failed to convince local hunters to honour international bird protection laws. From a political standpoint, this issue is a nightmare as hunting association memberships are sizeable enough to wield significant influence through their collective voting power.

Our pro bono work for Birdlife Malta was designed to stimulate social conscience about this issue, allow people to demonstrate support and help raise vital funding. While  payment for this work won’t show up in our bank account, this does not mean we did not get paid – the pride and satisfaction gained from helping such a worthy cause is the kind of reward money just can’t buy.

Related works:

1. Personal work influenced by survivors of the Haiti disaster

If you’ve spent the day reviewing portfolios, it’s not impossible that you could be seduced by miracles of presentation and glossy style. Not so with logos – these only really work when execution and content are inseparably fused – making the execution part of the content. It’s rare but you’ll know when you see it.

We saw it when looking at Herb Lubalin’s Mother & Child logo for the first time, almost 20 years ago. It could be argued that all our creative endeavors to date, have been a reaction to the envy we felt at that time. It’s with baited breath that we grudgingly concede we may never reach the heights scaled by a giant like Mr Lubalin but by measuring ourselves against him, we’ve probably raised our level.

We hope you enjoy this selection of logos designed by Bulldog.

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1. Saint James – Malta’s leading private hospital.

2. Calleja – 3rd generation, Maltese electical supplier.

3. Safeguard - Health and Safety initiative.

4. Skeletrain - amusement park ride (ghost train).

5. Pipesarge – product identity for a pipe and tube bending equipment.

6. EBKC – European Bully Kennel Club (unused concept).

7. Stellia – merchant services provider.

8. Transactium – payment processing company.

9. Birdlife -  campaign identity to raise awareness about illegal bird hunting.

10. Raging Poet – open mic poetry event.

11. Bulldog – business creativity.

13. Cheri – patriotic hairdresser from Ireland.

14. Hobbyshop – Norwegian kit model store.

Related works:

1. New environmental graphics for Calleja’s lighting store entrance
2. Commemorative launch materials for the opening of the Calleja stores

Bulldog immediately realised that the solution to Linda’s problem would lie in our ability to reduce a seemingly complex message down to a memorable, engaging idea. Once we decided that what Linda does is: ‘sort out puzzles in people’s heads’, this logo just sort of drew itself.

Linda says that she just can’t stop handing out her new business cards, “The change in peoples’ faces as they figure out the meaning for themselves is priceless.” We couldn’t agree more – in our opinion, the best communications leave room for audience participation.

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