Another 10 were sent the tohu.
“The tohu is a gift from the city to our makers and producers,” Black said.
Businesses were showing strong support for the brand mark, describing it as “beautiful”, “fabulous” and “cool” in written feedback.
“Wonderful initiative and stunning logo,” a business told Whanganui & Partners. “We will be using the tohu as part of our marketing.”
“Love it! A really phenomenal design asset,” another wrote.
A third said it was exquisite: “I really am swoony over the brand. Love the movement of the awa. It’s got beautiful rhythms. I’m going to enjoy seeing it around.”
The tohu was produced by kaupapa Māori designer Tyrone Ohia and his agency Extended Whānau.
Ohia (Ngāti Pukenga, Ngāi te Rangi) grew up in Whanganui and studied at the renowned Whanganui School of Design.
His work includes logos for Matariki (Te Tohu o Matariki), Auckland Unesco City of Music, and the redeveloped Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery, which opened in Whanganui last weekend.
“A tohu can be quite hard because there’s a lot of pressure on a really simple shape to do the mahi and say all the things it needs to say,” Ohia told Local Democracy Reporting.
“It’s always pretty agonising, but that’s just the normal sweat of trying to get to the right solution.
“You want it to be bold, to be able to stamp it on to things, to be simple. That’s the tightrope of the challenge.”
Ohia said the tohu was a symbol and a reminder of the story of Whanganui and its design history. It had been “very clear” where to look for inspiration.
“The awa was the place to go to. We always try to find those things that are enduring.
“If you zoom out a little from the kaupapa – the design designation, locating Whanganui in a wider network of creative cities and creating a badge of origin – you’ve got a long history of people who lived along the awa, their relationship with it and how it shaped their lives.
“Those things don’t change, they are universal truths to Whanganui.”
Ohia said the river influenced, for example, how early whānau designed tools and other objects.
“The lovely thing about digging into the awa is you find these relationships with the design process and what design does.
“The awa becomes a metaphor for that. Always flowing, creating ideas; it has an inception point, a mātāpuna, a wellspring ... that spark of inspiration, that seed of an idea that you need to nurture into something.
“There’s lovely whakaaro around how our awa actually shapes the land and people by carving its way through the whenua. It’s got tributaries and movement and has intent, finding its way to the moana.
“Like design, it’s not a solo game – lots of things feed into it to make it what it needs to be.
“These truths cross over really beautifully. To tell the story of design through the awa was really fitting and hard to argue with.”
Ohia describes the tohu: “It starts at a high point and flows like the awa does to Tangaroa, a lower point. Along the way it bends and winds.
“In the negative space are the koru – representing growth and new life starting to unfurl. That can’t happen without the positive space of the awa actually creating the koru. There’s an interconnectedness and inseparability there.
“And those bends. It winds to find its answer.”
Black said seeing the tohu throughout Whanganui would build pride and recognition for the area’s creative identity.
“As we continue to participate in the Creative Cities Network and share Whanganui’s stories, the tohu will enable us to highlight the people and businesses leading design initiatives here.”
The economic development team unveiled the tohu in mid-October and have presented it to exporters and the Mainstreet business group. It will meet with online product and service exporters next week.
Free to access and use, the tohu can be used only on products designed in the Whanganui River region by businesses, organisations or sole traders based in the region.
Users must also agree their product seeks to make a positive contribution to the community and that their business is committed to sustainable development.
Products such as vaping, smoking, gambling and alcohol are excluded from carrying the tohu.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air
