City of Brantford’s new logo design doesn’t go over very well

In this era of social media, introducing a new logo — for a sports team, a consumer product or even a corporation — is a scary thing: you're bound to be criticized, you're going to be ridiculed.

Hey — that's something our designers at Yahoo know too well.

It's also something that officials in the City of Brantford, Ontario are finding out in a big way.

Earlier this week, the hometown of Wayne Gretzky, introduced their new logo which cost the city's casino legacy fund approximately $80,000.

The logo is essentially a stylized B with an exclamation mark. The city's new slogan is "Brantford: Grand to Great."

Here's how the city described it on their website.

Residents of the 'great' city had some harsh opinions about it.

A couple of people suggested that it was nothing more than an enhancement of a 'stock' photo.

Others were just too busy laughing.

(Note: The $300,000 price tag includes the cost of putting the new logo on city vehicles and letterhead)

And this person was upset that the logo was 'outsourced' to a firm in Burlington:

An online poll, conducted by the Brantford Expositor, suggests that the public agrees with the tweeters. As of press time, only 14 per cent of over 1,500 people surveyed approved of the new design.

[ Related: Ontario Liberals mocked over new logo ]

The mayor of Brantford is defending the new branding, however, telling the Expositor that there was a great deal of community consultation.

"We're not at all surprised by some of the reaction and, in fact, we were expecting it," Mayor Chris Friel said.

"We've been down this road before.

"When we did this 13 years ago we got the same kind of reaction."

Brantford city council is expected to approve the new logo at a meeting next week.

(Photo courtesy of Brantford.ca)

Are you a politics junkie?
Follow @politicalpoints on Twitter!