Sir, - Viewing the great Irish logo debate from afar, and involved as I am in the vagaries of design and advertising, I find the whole situation laughable.
That qualified people can go to much trouble and expense in delivering what they feel to be the best expression of the "new Ireland" only to be pulled back by a politician and a posse of "experts" allegedly representing public opinion is totally unacceptable.
Drastically amended logos and brand/corporate identities often meet with initial rejection. One only has to think back to the furore over the change in the AIB logo some years back. AIB was slated at the time for not using Irish designers (perhaps rightly so) to produce what was in many people found a highly questionable and obtuse marque allegedly depicting Noah's Ark. The bank did not succumb to this pressure, and today the logo sits familiar and publicly accepted on the high streets of Ireland as its undisputed identity.
The point is that radical new logos need time to subsume themselves into the culture of a company or a country. Presented correctly to the primary target audience (presumably visitors to the country), the rejected new logo could clearly suggest sharing, caring, vibrancy; it is fresh, different, stands out and suggests a welcoming nation; it is multidimensional and for that reason is open to interpretation. The shamrock logo, while familiar to everyone in Ireland, is arguably saying much less. At one level it is a green leaf of some kind; at another suggestive of an "Oirishness" that encompasses the shillelagh and the leprechaun. Perhaps Dana could use it as the symbol for her presidential election campaign?
It is an oft-quoted truism that the more creative the idea or the stronger the design, the greater the number of "like-it-a-lot" and "don't-like-it-at-alls" it receives. - Yours, etc.,
SEAN BOYLE,
Batey Ads,
Singapore.