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A Better Toronto Slogan: The Winners

20101020sloganwinner.jpg
Summing a city up in a phrase, we said when our better Toronto slogan competition started, isn’t easy. But hundreds of Torontonians tried, and when our judging panel of city thinkers was tasked with narrowing the submissions down, they had more than a thousand Toronto slogans to choose from. Those thousand somehow became ten finalists—some great ones just barely missed making it—and then the public took their turn.
Now, the results are in. In the order that several thousand votes put them, and accompanied by the fake posters we made for them, these are the best new Toronto slogans:

GRAND PRIZE WINNER

1 “Fall in XO with TO”
34.32% SUBMITTED BY SARAH BOBAS
FallInXOWithTO_notext2.jpg

RUNNERS-UP

2 “Toronto. Forever Yonge.”
12.82% SUBMITTED BY DAVID DEL GRANDE
Forever-Yonge-small2.jpg

3 “Toronto Speaks Your Language”
12.34% SUBMITTED BY MARY ROUFAIL
SpeaksYourLanguage.jpg

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

4 “Visit Toronto. See the World.”
11.49% SUBMITTED BY TODD AIKEN
VisitTorontoSeeTheWorld.jpg

5 “Toronto: The World in One City”
11.25% SUBMITTED BY JIM VAN MEGGELEN
World-In-One-City2_640.jpg

6 “Toronto the Good”
6.88% SUBMITTED BY EMILY FAN
TorontoTheGood.jpg

7 “Toronto: A World of Neighbourhoods”
5.62% SUBMITTED BY MELISSA AGOSTINO
WorldOfNeighbourhoods2.jpg

8 “A World of Difference”
2.15% SUBMITTED BY DONNA BLAIS
A World of Difference

9 “Come In, We’re Open”
1.91% SUBMITTED BY CHRISTINE KENYON
ComeInWereOpen_rapids_notag.jpg

10 “Toronto: Nations United”
1.23% SUBMITTED BY MEL MARIAMPILLAI
Nations United

What the winners get: There are prizes, in addition to just bragging rights. The grand prize winner gets one night at the Gladstone, in one of their Classic Designed Artist Rooms; a gift certificate to Quinn’s Steakhouse & Irish Bar; and a copy of Caitlin Cronenberg‘s naked-people-photo-book POSER. The winner and each of the two runners-up get a copy of the poster we designed for them, thanks to Posterjack; tickets to the Art Gallery of Ontario, Second City, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Toronto Underground Cinema; an Arts&Crafts prize pack; and subscriptions to Broken Pencil, Spacing, and This Magazine.

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Comments

  • http://www.mammalian.ca Darren O’Donnell

    The winner is okay, except that it’s so obviously a bite of I heart NY!!!
    Toronto, you don’t have to compare yourself to nyc all the time!
    I like Speaks Your Language and Nations United.
    just say no to nyc!

  • http://flickr.com/aged_accozzaglia accozzaglia

    Sarah: fourteen-fifty-nine, fourteen-fifty-eight, fourteen-fifty-seven . . .

  • http://undefined Jason

    I think #1 would be better if it were simply “XO in T.O.”
    Great work all around though!

  • http://undefined theZube

    The winner is reminiscent of NY’s, but it’s the best one. Heaven forbid we ever lose our multicultural crown because then we’d have nothing to be proud of in this city judging by most of the other entries.
    “Toronto the Good” is funny but only when paired with a picture, and the phrase should stand on its own.
    “Forever Yonge” is clever but it relies on knowledge of Yonge St., when I figure these slogans are supposed to be marketable to people *outside* Toronto.

  • http://www.nobodysbusiness.ca Johnnie Walker

    At Tom Lenk’s show last month, he suggested “JO in TO”.

  • http://undefined Luckysod

    The winning entry is okay, but it’s not inspired. The slogan would work better if a view of the city dominated, instead of the couple. That would say “Fall in XO with TO”, but what we have now is “Fall in XO in TO”.

  • smasharts

    I like the winner because it is simple and can translate well – remember it’s for non-TOians and potential visitors from abroad.
    “Forever Yonge” would never work. Non-Canadian friends who have visited have commented to me before: “Why is your main street called Yonge (rhymes with ‘sponge’) Street?”

  • http://www.guesswork.ca Patrick Metzger

    “xo” stand for “hugs and kisses”, not “love” (the commonly used xoxoxoxoxooxox means kisshugkisshugkisshug etc, not lovelovelovelovelove). So this slogan says “Fall in kisshug with Toronto.
    But at least it’s not begging people to like us because we have a lot of neighbourhoods that are dimestore versions of other real countries.

  • thelemur

    It may be simple but I’m not sure it would translate well at all. The idea of ‘xo’ for hugs & kisses or love is not universal; calling Toronto ‘TO’ doesn’t register with non-Torontonians.
    ‘Forever Yonge’ might be corny and downtown-centric, but at least it identifies with something inherent to Toronto. So what if people think it rhymes with ‘sponge’ (or ‘song’)? Tourists have trouble with names in other places. But it would be better suited to a BIA than a tourism campaign.

  • http://undefined Marc Lostracco

    Forever Sponge sounds like a contraceptive.

  • http://flickr.com/aged_accozzaglia accozzaglia

    It would solve so many of life’s problems.

  • Brendalammi

    Is this for real? These slogans and posters are absolutely terrible. Having spent the last two weeks in Miami, I can say that toddlers in grade schools came up with better ways of talking about diversity and unity. And having spent the last month in Montréal, I can say that the exact same things are being claimed by jacket-and-tie guys who come out of marketing MBAs and who then start talking about what they love most about Montréal: It’s openness and diversity. I love Toronto but this competition is embarrassing.

  • Brendalammi

    Is this for real? These slogans and posters are absolutely terrible. Having spent the last two weeks in Miami, I can say that toddlers in grade schools came up with better ways of talking about diversity and unity. And having spent the last month in Montréal, I can say that the exact same things are being claimed by jacket-and-tie guys who come out of marketing MBAs and who then start talking about what they love most about Montréal: It’s openness and diversity. I love Toronto but this competition is embarrassing.