A California company has been hired to help rebrand the City of Calgary.
The contract was awarded to Gensler, a San Francisco design company, after it beat out a couple of local firms.
But it's the hiring of an American company that is coming under fire.
"I was very disappointed it went outside the city and I was even more disappointed that it went outside the country," says Joe Connelly, the alderman for Ward 6.
"The question that has come forward is curious to me," says Lance Carlson, the chairperson of the rebranding steering committee. "Are we making decisions based on geography and local or are we making decisions based on the product we want and where we can take it."
The American company is tasked with replacing The Heart of the West brand that the city has used since 2000.
"This is a very bad time to change logos, a very bad time to change banners in the middle of a recession," says Alderman Ric McIver. "We should actually be extracting the value of the city logos that we already have rather than create a new one. This is actually going to set back our economic development by, I think, years and at the very worst time."
The rebranding will cost close to $300,000.
