2 Waves Are Better Than 3 : OCTD Takes Long Route to New Logo

On second thought, Orange County Transit District board members decided Monday, two big waves on the agency’s new bus logo are better than three ripples.

Two weeks ago, the transit board voted 4 to 0 for a new, oval-shaped logo featuring three orange ripples and white “OCTD” letters against a sea-foam-green background to replace the current insignia, which resembles a squashed yellow, blue and orange beach ball.

But Monday, on a 4-1 vote, OCTD board members scrapped their first choice. They opted instead for an oval with a white background, two waves instead of three, and sea-foam-green letters against a white background.

About $2,500 had already been spent on finished artwork employing the design adopted two weeks ago. Plans called for using the new logo--and color scheme--on several hundred new buses and dial-a-ride vans over the next few years.

The entire debate, board members acknowledged, was unusual.

First, board member Roger R. Stanton last month complained that no new logo was necessary, but then he missed the May 18 board vote.

Second, board member Gerald Mullen, who voted on May 18 for the design featuring three waves and a green background, asked for reconsideration at Monday’s board meeting because Stanton had reminded him that the selected design was not what the two of them had agreed upon in their role as a two-man committee advising the full board.

Third, designer Jim Van Noy, president of the firm that provided both logos under a $30,000 contract, lobbied the board in writing not to change its mind and called the second logo--the one adopted Monday--”demonstrably inferior” and “not in the best interests of the OCTD or the people of Orange County.”

This prompted Stanton to question whether OCTD paid for two “inferior” designs.

At one point during Monday’s debate, Stanton walked up to a cardboard display showing both designs and covered the O in OCTD on one of them. He asked board member Richard B. Edgar if the result didn’t look like a steer’s horns because of the way the letters, in cursive style, were linked.

Yes, said Edgar, he could see Stanton’s point.

But Edgar added: “No, it doesn’t bother me.”

And board Chairman William E. Farris joked that restaurateur Stuart Anderson had done well with a steer’s horn in the logo for his steak houses.

The final vote seemed to turn not on where’s the beef, but rather on the acuity of the eye of the beholder. Mullen, squinting toward the display board, said the design with the white background was simpler and easier for the elderly to see--a direct contradiction of Van Noy’s own written analysis.

In opposing the board’s switch, Farris said it’s wrong to pay a consultant to do a job and then totally ignore the consultant’s recommendation.

Said Stanton: “But he (Van Noy) designed both of them.”

Van Noy, seated in the audience, watched in silence and declined comment.

Following the meeting, Farris said he had been worried that the board looked too indecisive. And of Van Noy’s silence, the chairman said:

“Discretion, in his case, was the better part of valor.”