Jane Keenan, Rachael Buckley and Nicholas Lew, Ara Bachelor of Visual Communication students, have won out against their classmates to design the new logo for the Christchurch Stadium (formerly AMI Stadium).

Tim Brown, Operations Manager at Ara Art and Design said the four groups of students who submitted design proposals to the Christchurch Stadium Trust were thrilled to be given such an amazing opportunity to design for a high profile client as part of their Professional Practice course.

“As you can imagine, if you were a student on a high profile project like the Christchurch Stadium, it’s such a massive opportunity for them to get their work seen, and get their name out there,” Brown says.

After 11 years of naming-rights sponsorship of stadiums in Christchurch, firstly Lancaster Park from 2007 to 2011 and then the temporary Stadium from 2012 to 2018, AMI decided it was now time for a change in their sponsorship strategy.

Tim Shannahan CEO of Christchurch Stadium Trust said, “When we needed to rebrand the stadium we thought that creating a new logo would be a perfect project for Ara students. There is no certainty as to how long this logo will be in use, as efforts are continuing to find a new naming-rights sponsor. So the Trust approached Ara to find some students who could submit proposal designs as part of their course work. We were impressed by the quality of the concepts presented, and are pleased with the design that has been selected.”

The successful students completed the final version of the logo in four weeks.

Their design presentation outlined the thinking behind the design. “We chose three different colours. The red would be the primary logo. Borrowing from the city’s spirit, this logo would identify with all Cantabrians. The royal purple was chosen for corporate or professional events. Light blue was chosen for other events at the stadium such as music events. These three colours reflect the many different uses for the stadium, while working together if needed.”

The graphics represent the stands at the end of the stadium.

Brown said the Art and Design staff appreciated that the Trust had approached Ara with the opportunity to design the logo.

“This project fits right in with the kind of work our students are given to take on in Professional Practice. Primarily this is work for non-profits, trusts, kick-start businesses, and organisations that are community based and or for social good. The stadium rebrand is a large scale project but we understood why they wanted to approach it in this way, so we thought it would be great for our students to give it a go.”

Christchurch Stadium Trust has adopted the new logo on some online platforms and will continue to roll it out, including on the stadium itself, in the coming months.

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