[/floatl]Yomiuri: Design blunder costs 34 mil. yen
Tokyo metropolitan government's Sewage Bureau spent about 34 million yen having a new set of badges made for staff uniforms after a problem was found with the logo on an original batch of 20,000, it has been learned. The 20,000 badges featured the name of the organization with a five-centimeter blue wavelike line underneath it. The design was judged to contravene metropolitan government design rules relating to its logos, prompting the bureau to have a new set of badges made. The metropolitan government reportedly attributed responsibility for the mistake to two senior officials in charge of having the badges made, and punished them. The metropolitan government's reaction over the badges is likely to be criticized for being too inflexible and unnecessarily bureaucratic, sources said...About 20,000 badges were made and some of them were sewn on uniforms in November. However, during a meeting held in November, the issue of the badge's design was queried as it was thought it might contravene design rules stipulated in a basic design manual. The internal design rule specifies where the ginkgo symbol should be placed and the size ratio between the symbol and letters. The rule stipulates that other elements should not be added to a badge. The bureau interpreted the internal rule in the strictest possible way, the sources said. Although the internal rule also provides exceptions, the bureau decided to take out the line and have another batch of badges made. The initial budget for making the uniforms was about 213 million yen. But the metropolitan government had to pay an additional 34 million yen to have the new badges made and sewn on the uniforms, they said...more...
