By Nangamso Mabindla

The Buffalo City Municipality has offered students from the Buffalo City College in East London an opportunity to design a logo for the R1-billion Mdantsane Urban Renewal Programme.

Councillor Sizwe Dikimolo told the students yesterday that the municipality was offering the students a place in history by asking them to design a logo. "It is an offer I think you, as energetic young South African graphic artists with ambition, will find hard to refuse."

Dikimolo said the logo should encompass the whole history of South Africa. "It must be a logo that speaks of the good and bad memories of the past, the challenges of the present and the hopes of the future in a simple manner that will be understood by both the illiterate and the learned and will transcend cultural barriers as a homegrown expression of renewal," Dikimolo said.

Dikimolo said the municipality intended to make the logo an icon of urban renewal, enabling people to better understand how Mdantsane fitted into the South African, political, social and economic context.

"I don't' want you to feel intimidated by the challenge. If you understand where we are coming from, where we are today and where we want to go, you should not have a problem in putting your graphic art skills to good use in pulling together the threads to produce a logo that will tell the story of Mdantsane."

The councillor said he believed the students would be able to meet the challenge. "I know it is a mammoth task but we are asking you to capture our programme in a logo that will become synonymous with the programme."

The college's students were responsible for the design of the city's crest.

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