Brian Rudman: Park ranger badge lives on, but it's not stunning or unique

Cartoon / Peter Bromhead

As lounge lizards of urban Ponsonby, Hamish Keith and Bill Ralston, two of the judges in the Auckland Council logo competition, might be forgiven for not having stumbled on any Auckland Regional Council park rangers lately.

But you would have thought chief judge and king of the Waitakere Ranges Bob Harvey might have noticed the similarity between the ARC park rangers' distinctive pohutukawa badges and the design he and his fellow judges chose as winner of the Auckland Council logo contest.

"It's a stunning design," said Mr Harvey when he unveiled it on Friday afternoon. "It is not a stereotype" and is "an image to which all Aucklanders can relate". It seems neither of these latter claims is exactly accurate.

An almost identical logo has been used by the ARC as a "unique" identifier on things as diverse as park-ranger shirts to the ARC chairman's Christmas cards.

It's been an ARC symbol for a quarter of a century yet has passed by these design experts unnoticed and past retired commercial artist Jim Dean, who entered his lookalike image in the recent contest.

Still, apart from pohutukawa-red faces all round for those involved in the contest, no real harm has been done. Indeed the ARC is quite pleased, as its logo will live on.

To me, its main shortcoming is its lack of any special Aucklandness.

The judges wanted an image to which all Aucklanders could relate, which this does. They also wanted something that evoked the geography of the region and, yes, pohutukawa blossoms are part of local Christmas.

But they're also a flower any North Islander could relate to as being part of their local geography.

Call me a traditionalist, but the one symbol that sums up Auckland to both locals and outsiders is the distinctive cone shape of Rangitoto.

The judges admit many of the 1500-odd entries included this symbol, but as has been previously reported, after the contest closed, Mr Harvey and Mr Keith both declared an aversion to Rangitoto, with other popular favourites, the letter "A" and sails.

Still, when we have bigger issues such as columnist Noelle McCarthy's inability to snare a man to agonise over, the shape of Auckland Council's new logo hardly seems that important.

It seems only yesterday that Auckland City went through a $1 million rebranding fiasco, coming up with the deflated triangle logo that now graces city vehicles and letterheads. Straight after its launch, Triangle Television complained it had a remarkable resemblance to its logo.

At the risk of exposing myself to charges of self-plagiarism, I did, then, suggest reverting to Auckland City's original coat of arms, a handsome heraldic affair commissioned from the Royal College of Arms.

It was granted in October 1911, which is almost exactly a century before the new Auckland Council comes into being. We were the first city in New Zealand to get one, and ever so proud we were.

It is rather more fussy than modern design gurus like, but it does have the merit of telling the city's story in a simple, graphical way.

It contains a cornucopia, or horn of plenty, to symbolise the wealth of the region, with a crossed pick and shovel, symbolising early mining activity.

As the Government is now planning to mine Great Barrier Island, how up to date is that? The sailing ship represents the port, the flax bush and kiwis the local geography.

Like a Ponsonby villa, it's so retro. It seems ripe for a dust down and gentrification. Best of all, it's already ours, is guaranteed unique and is free.

Talking of 100 years ago, last week I wrote of the rebellion in darkest Howick against being included in a new Super City electorate called Te Irirangi. Locals seem outraged at living in a ward named after the original Maori landlord of the area.

What did surprise me at the time was how overwhelmingly anti-Te Irirangi the "professional poll" results were. Only 5 per cent supported that name, compared to 58 per cent for Howick and 31 per cent for Howick/Pakuranga/Botany.

I've since got a copy of the official questionnaire the telephone pollsters from Curia Research used, and the reason is clear. Te Irirangi was not given as a choice.

Those rung were told the local community boards wanted the proposed name changed and were asked did they prefer Howick or Howick/Pakuranga/Botany?

Only if someone insisted on Te Irirangi was it recorded. No wonder Te Irirangi scored so poorly.