In Brief: Kiss This, Mexico City

Every now and then it's worthy to remind us of the horrible perils of spec work. Whether designers should do it or not is really not the question, each person can decide what to do, but what's clear is that the creative process and its manifestation is what suffers the most. A few months ago, Mexico City, through its Department of Tourism announced a contest to design the official logo for the city. Using the I♥NY logo as an example of what it wanted to achieve it then set the following parameters: The logo should depict the Angel de la Independencia monument and it should revolve around the theme of Bésame Mucho, the (rather lovely) song by Consuelo Velázquez. Anybody in the world could participate and vie for the prize of MX\$1,000,000 (around US\$73,000) to be filtered through a judging panel and the final winner selected by on-line voting. From 8,000 entries five finalists have been selected (one has already been removed for copyright issues) and are available for voting. The results are disheartening (other than the idea of No. 4). You can also see a number of the entries on a Flickr pool; this one is pretty fabulous (semi-NSFW). As a fellow Mexican and designer, it's really sad to see this, Mexico City (if Lance Wyman proved anything) could have an exciting and vibrant identity and someone leading the process, not just a silly contest that dangles money in front of people. So, dear Mexico City, here is a tip: Hire a professional.