Sneers and jeers greeted the Visit Malaysia Year 2020 logo when it was unveiled on Friday but Tourism and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz is adamant about using it.
There seems to be no shortage of issues at the Tourism Ministry. There was the tourism tax, then the umrah levy, and now the ridicule over the Visit Malaysia 2020 logo.
Despite many netizens taking a dim view of the newly-unveiled Visit Malaysia Year 2020 campaign logo, the Tourism and Culture Ministry is standing by it.
Its minister said receiving flak was not an issue.
“Criticism is normal, we cannot get the consensus of the whole of Malaysia.
“If we want to wait for everyone to agree, even by 2020 it (the logo) will not be completed,” said Nazri.
The ministry did not spend a single sen on the logo as its in-house design department came up with it, he revealed.
“We have our own in-house design department and they were responsible for designing all the logos from the first Visit Malaysia Year (in 1990), until this, which is the fifth.
“We didn’t pay any advertising house any money at all to design it.
“I’d rather trust my staff than the netizens. Anyway, it was never meant for the locals, it was meant for tourists,” Nazri said.
On Friday, the minister unveiled the logo at the Asean Tourism Forum in Chiang Mai, Thailand. He claimed that it received good response there.
However, it immediately came under fire on the Internet as netizens said that the design was not up to standard.
The logo, designed to look like a postage stamp, features the Petronas Twin Towers, an Orang Utan hugging a proboscis monkey and a turtle on a beach, all donning sunglasses.
It carries the tagline: Travel. Enjoy. Respect.
According to Nazri, the logo comprised icons best-associated with Malaysia.
“We retained the Petronas Twin Towers in the logo as it is the most photographed tourism product in Malaysia.
“We have to be proud of the twin towers just as the French take pride in their Eiffel Tower,” he said.
As for the animals, Nazri said they were symbols used in previous Visit Malaysia Year campaigns.
“For the Visit Malaysia Year 2020 campaign, we cannot erase them because the animals are symbolic to Malaysia,” he said.
To ensure that these animals are not claimed by other countries as their own tourism symbols, Nazri said the ministry decided to continue using the animals in the new logo.
“If we do not include these animals in our logo, other countries will claim them,” he said.
The logo was also designed to be colourful as Malaysia is a colourful nation, he added.
“Malaysia is truly Asia, so we have to depict our colourful nation with colours,” said Nazri.
Visit Malaysia Year 2020 aims to bring in 36 million tourists to the nation.
The logo has drawn widespread sneers and jeers on the Internet with many netizens mocking it as they feel it is of poor design.
Netizens said they would be ashamed to promote Visit Malaysia Year 2020 as the logo was not up to Malaysian standards.
The Twitter handle, #VisitMalaysia2020, has drawn mostly unflattering comments from netizens, with one commenting: “No one wants to #visitMalaysia2020 now seeing that we are backwards with our graphic designing as well.”
“A kiddy art competition would come up with more content and creativity than this, I promise! Or is that a LOL Visit Malaysia 2020 logo? Oh come on…,” Andy (@2namuh) wrote on his Twitter account.
Many expressed disbelief that the logo was approved for Malaysia’s global tourism campaign, wondering if the photo shared online was fake or part of a joke.
Some claimed the logo was designed using a simple programme like Microsoft Paint and had put Malaysian graphic designers to shame.
Arshad, who uses the Twitter handle @itsmymn, said: “I’m sick and tired of this humiliation. How can you be a freaking minister, when you can’t realise how awful and humiliating this logo is.
“You know what this says to the world for 2020? ‘Malaysians can’t design.’ I weep for all our great graphic designers,” he said.
Another user with the handle @avenseenafauzi said: “Our official logo for visit Malaysia 2020. Gonna be a joke for another 2 years and beyond.”
Facebook users also joined in the criticism.
“I hope this is a joke. Not every design can just be done in-house or using a freelancer. Even freelance designers might do better than this.
“This kind of work should be done by a reputable agency and the logo project alone should take some time,” Al-Hussaini Mustafa Hadi said in a posting.
“We urge the government to come out with a better logo as there are many talented Malaysians Designer that can come out (produce) with a better logo.
“The Year 2020 should be futuristic but (need to) incorporate (designs of) local culture with flora and fauna,” Facebook user Firdaus Sinichi Mansor said.