Feb

EU organic logo design competition winner announced

Steve Douglas on February 9th, 2010

From the “All’s Well That Ends Well Department”. Back in 2007, the EU (European Union) announced plans to introduce a compulsory organic labeling scheme across all 27 countries, and a couple of years later, revealed the program logo, designed for mandatory use on products that are 95 per cent or more organic and free of genetically modified organisms (GMO).

Not everyone was happy with the design, including Germany-based retailer Aldi, who raised some concerns (and eyebrows) over the similarities between the new green logo and its own trademarked organic brand symbol (left). After a lot of frantic phone calls, a few red faces and probably a few strongly-worded lawyers’ letters, EU officials backed down, the logo was shelved and the launch, originally scheduled for 2009, delayed until this year. The responsible commission decided that they’d try again, this time opting for a Europe-wide logo design contest, open to art and design students. Final voting was available to the public via the contest website, and some 130,000 Europeans chimed in, helping decide the official design.

Fast forward to today when, after tallying all submitted votes, The European Commission officially announced the winning design (above left) by Dusan Milenkovic, a German student, who gained 63% of the overall vote for his “Euro Leaf” logo. The icon shows the EU stars in the shape of a leaf against a green background and is meant to convey two messages: “Nature and Europe“. Over the past two months, people have voted online to choose the new organic symbol from three finalists, whittled down from nearly 3,500 logos by an international jury. The three logos (above) were featured on the competition website with voting ending on January 31.

“I’m delighted that we now have a fresh EU Organic Food Logo,” said Mariann Fischer Boel, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, who first proposed the competition when the original blew up. “This exercise has raised the profile of organic food and we now have a logo which everyone will be able to identify with. It’s a nice elegant design and I look forward to buying products carrying this logo from July this year.”

The three top logo designers will be honoured by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development at an official award ceremony that will take place in Brussels later this summer. The three winners will receive prizes of €6,000, €3,500 and €2,500. In case you were wondering, those little squiggly symbols are Euros, each worth about a buck thirty five (or thereabouts).

Not everyone was thrilled with the contest, or the three logos they had to choose from. Organic association Bioform issued a statement by director Leen Laenens, supposedly representing “many” in the industry, that read in part “they (the three proposals) have no visible link with the sector. One could ask the question whether the consumer is aware the an organic product is involved“.

Ah well. Can’t please all of the people, all of the time.

Tags: Contests, news, rebranding