Heart Logo Beats the Field

June 2010

One glimpse at the new Creating a Better Future logo and you’d never guess the young girl behind it has only just started learning about digital design.

Howick College year 12 student Maddi Duthie won a school competition run by the Counties Manukau District Health Board (CMDHB) to design a logo for Creating a Better Future. The logo will be used on all material linked to the strategy, including letterheads, project reports, powerpoint presentations, promotional material and the website.

Maddi’s winning logo, for which she received an iPod Nano, was one of a field of entries, all of which were of a very high standard. Her work incorporates a blue heart with koru and green leaves – symbols she says represent health, growth, creation and New Zealand identity. It took about three hours in the classroom to create, starting by drawing a page of rough sketches and then using three specialist design programmes on a school computer to transform these into workable graphics.

“We are so impressed with the way in which Maddi’s design represents the various elements of our new project. It will be great to use a logo created by a local young person as part of Creating a Better Future for years to come,” says Tracey Barron of the CMDHB.

Maddi’s work is particularly impressive because the 16-year-old Howick girl only started studying digital design earlier this year. Now it is one of her favourite subjects which she hopes to turn into a career by studying a Bachelor of Graphic Design at the Auckland University of Technology.

“I want to be a graphic designer when I leave school. This competition was a good opportunity which came through.”

So what are her tips for a winning design?

“Bright colours,” she says. “And keep it simple because it’s a logo and it’s got to be easily distinguished from other logos.”

Thanks Maddi – feedback so far has all been positive and suggests your logo is definitely distinctive for Creating a Better Future.