Moxie House Owner Speaks About Lancaster’s Rose Logo
The last blog post on Lancaster’s “authentic” rose logo has been generating lots of interest in my local community. While researching the blog post, I saw few comments from Moxie House, the design and marketing firm that has been pushed into the spotlight when it was falsely accused of copying the logo from another artist.
I assumed Moxie House wanted to stay away from the mud-slinging, but I was also interested to hear its side of the story. The fact that Moxie House is a boutique women-owned firm made me even more curious.
I called owner Deb Brandt, who agreed to speak with me.
“The rose was brought in by the city,” Deb said. “We proposed to design a logo, being the kind of business that we are, but we were told that the logo was in the process of being copyrighted … I knew the city had worked on it internally, and I was informed that it was created by a sign shop, but I didn’t know the origin of the logo. That was all surprising to me.”
“We’ve been working with the city for five years. I love the City of Lancaster, and I want to do as much as I can to promote it. Our mission is ‘design for good.’ Everything we do has some sort of philanthropic message. We do a ton of pro-bono work for the city and non-profits in the city.”
I asked Deb if it had shaken her trust in the Lancaster community.
“It makes me sad that a small group of people can make false accusations and be given a voice,” she said. “I wish that people would take that energy and passion and do something good for the City. The unity in this City is incredibly important. There are so many passionate, wonderful people that live and work here. We need to focus on the good of the whole and not let the few destroy its progress. “
“Over the past five years we’ve been told we’ve managed to rise above all the political muck, and now I know what it feels like be in it. We’ve done our due diligence with this project and are trying to deal with this less than professional situation in a graceful manner.”
11 Responses to Moxie House Owner Speaks About Lancaster’s Rose Logo
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I’d be really curious to know who made that video and what their motives were. It’s a shame that Moxie House is being drug through the mud because the video maker didn’t bother to get the facts or because of professional jealousy.
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That’s certainly one side and cheers to you, Kelly, for getting and publishing it.
Another side might be this.
Brandt characteristically classifies any criticism as unprofessional. Well, that’s convenient for her but it doesn’t go very far in actually addressing the valid concerns and criticisms brought up by many people.
When she speaks of “due diligence” does she mean that she knew the rose logo was, as had been described several other places, “clip art”? If she did know that then isn’t it somewhat cynical to base a branding/positioning campaign using the word “authentic” on a piece a clip art?
Brandt speaks at length about her philanthropic endeavors and I would be the last to criticize those but more to the point, how much did the City pay Moxie House to “develop” a clip art graphic and a phrase “a city authentic”? That’s really the point, isn’t it?
What strikes me as odd is that both the City and Moxie House claim this has been in the works for at least two years (the figure cited is usually higher). What have they been doing? Was the logo focus grouped? It’s difficult to account for that amount of time given what we’ve seen on the CIty web site. A logo with a tag line and a sixteen page brochure?
I agree with Brandt that unity is important but it won’t come about without what you mentioned Kelly, transparency and accountability.
You bring up great questions, Russell. I got the impression from Deb that she’s trying to let the city address most of this — it is her clients, after all, and it would be the authority. Trying to explain it any more than she has might imply more culpability than Moxie House has in the matter.
That said, I wish the city would be more forthright about the questions, and I hope that by continuing to discuss it here and elsewhere, they’ll be forced to finally open up about their process and their spending.
For some reason I have a tad more sympathy here for the City than I do for Moxie. And I’ll explain why.
I cannot imagine, as someone who also does design work for clients, accepting a piece of art or a graphic from a client without questioning its origin and acceptable use. I cannot imagine, as someone who spent time in school studying art, that anyone with a similar education wouldn’t recognize this graphic and wonder how it could be copyrighted. I especially cannot imagine how, if I knew what the public story on this graphic element was, described as a clip art from a sign company, I simply cannot imagine me working with that graphic and not imploring my client to abandon it. I would definitely not use it in a branding campaign. Street signs. Ok, I suppose. A branding campaign? A branding campaign using the word “authentic”? I don’t you think you have to have a creative bone in your body to see the folly there.
I do understand how difficult it is to work with government entities. It can be maddening. But the people in City Hall aren’t designers. They don’t deal with these issues day in and day out. I can see how they would do what they did, I just don’t understand how Moxie did what it did.
And I want to address the video comment “Mickey” made above. I’m curious as to who made the video as well. It’s not my work. But that’s really not the key issue. What that video demonstrates is pretty simple. It’s difficult to image that this work was the result of years of effort and the culmination of a career in design and branding.
The logo was presented and a tagline added. All in all, for most designers or ad agencies, a good days work. Ok, maybe a few days work sweating out the tagline. We can argue about the quality of the tagline. Does it actually describe anything? What does it mean to someone who has never been here? Does it make someone who knows nothing about Lancaster want to know more? But that’s beside the point and no matter what tagline was used, we could argue about it.
Here’s the thing. Moxie got this job for an undisclosed amount of money and given that, it should be top shelf, right? This isn’t something someone at City Hall whipped up in their off hours. This is the product of years of development (that’s what the City and Moxie said). I just don’t see it.
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Gonna quote Artie See, of LancTalk, TalkBack, and Lancaster Post fame, here:
“Yes, both the square rose and “A City Authentic” are poor choices. What most people don’t seem to want to realize is that neither of these originated in the mayor’s office.
Rick Gray was pushing for “Edge of the East”, which was vetoed by the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau (thank goodness!). The PDCVB came back with a number of alternatives, most of which were terrible – or worse. “A City Authentic” was reluctantly accepted by the mayor’s office after lengthy negotiations.
The square rose came from somewhere inside Public Works. I understand the mayor’s office had little or nothing to do with it.
Yes, there IS a real but hidden power structure in Lancaster City and County. It manifests itself in many ways; some visible, others not. This includes the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Lancaster Alliance, the Lancaster Campaign, the Downtown Investment District, the James Street Investment District, and the PDCVB, among others.
NO elected official in Lancaster City or County has either the power or the influence to totally and completely overcome the persistent pressures from the business and social elite.”
As for Deb’s comment:
““It makes me sad that a small group of people can make false accusations and be given a voice,” she said. “I wish that people would take that energy and passion and do something good for the City. ”
I would say that is EXACTLY what happened — these people took their energy and told the Emperor’s they were bare-@ss nekkid.
They were mistaken in the belief that the ad campaign was all Moxie’s doing coupled with the stupidity of elected officials (the video does seem to lay responsibility on Lancaster and Moxie), but they were spot-on in pointing out that the end result — regardless of how it was reached — is poor.
Interesting details about the mayor’s office, Robert. Thanks for sharing those.
Maybe a better response would have been…..
“It is understandable that a small group of people made accusations based on what they saw without explanation and I fully support our civil rights to have everyone given a voice,” she said. “It would be wonderful if we could all use that kind of energy and passion and do something good for the City.“
According to Randy Patterson, Moxie house was paid $12,000.00 for there work on this.
They weren’t responsible for the icon, the catch phrase appears to be the work of others as well.
So, does this mean they were paid that sum for two colors and a font treatment?
Nice work if you can get it, I suppose…
Yes indeed, nice work, if you belong to the right club and think the general populace of Lancaster is stupid.
The city and Moxie clammed up, the story fell off a cliff, and the stolen logo and stupid catch-phrase remain, so I suppose the club members may be right after all.