Aontú’s candidate at last May’s by-election has condemned Galway city council’s reaction to public disquiet on rebranding its iconic ‘G’ logo.
The party’s representative for Galway West, Orla Nugent, has called on City Hall to halt its roll-out of the new logo before more money is spent rebranding after a €28,000 initial outlay.
Nugent, who with 1,176 first preference votes came 11th of the 17 candidates at the May by-election, said the local authority’s lack of consultation with the general public on its rebrand demonstrates an attitude within the council’s executive of making decisions in a vacumn. Aontú currently has no councillors elected on Galway’s city or county councils.
“At a recent Aontú cumann meeting, members were infuriated that the iconic logo, which is world recognisable and still capable of representing Galway city now - and well into the future - had been changed... Wasting money, resources and time on this was totally unacceptable. Galway city council have ignored public reaction and doubled down on a bad decision with a ‘nothing to see here’ attitude,” she says.
Nugent sees three things wrong with the design: “The old logo had a capital ‘G’ appropriate for proper names, whereas the new truncated small ‘g’ logo fails that test. Second, the new logo does not include the arms of the city which have represented the city since medieval times. Third, it is uncannily similar to an existing logo – no doubt, accidentally - for a company named ‘Gondella’ that supplies and fits ‘custom retail shelving, displays and shop fittings for major retailers across Europe’.”
Nugent said the new logo decision points to a trend of not consulting citizens of the city, and raises question of value for money.
“Unlike Government, the council cannot splash around the windfall of corporation taxes from the multinationals, but [instead] pulls it out of hard-pressed Galway businesses.
Nugent says she was “shocked” reading an Instagram post from the proprietor of McGinn’s Hop House, Fergus McGinn, which brought the rebrand controversy into the public domain, allied with fears of a 15 per cent jump in commercial rates for city pubs and restaurants.
“Just place the old and new logos beside each other and ask yourself the question: ‘which represents Galway?’ The capital ‘G’ with the city crest!
“Let’s not throw good money after bad,” says Nugent. “Halt the roll-out of this logo before more money is spent on stationery, signage and so on.”
