what a shame.
Posted In: colorado, creativity, design, everyday, Fort Collins
Comments: 7 Responses
The City of Fort Collins has created a firestorm (I hate that word, by the way; it’s a such an overly dramatic news media term) of criticism over announcement of the city’s new logo. Supposedly, city council spent $80,000 on an overhaul of Fort Collin’s image, including a new logo. The logo is at the center of the hatred. To put it bluntly, it’s a horrible, piece of crap, talent-less creation that doesn’t do the city justice in the least. Never mind the amount paid for it, which, in and of itself, isn’t that exorbitant for top-quality design. But everything is relative, and for $80k, the city could have gotten a lot more in terms of quality for that amount. To make matters worse, it wasn’t even a local firm that did the work.
Just a taste, from the local Coloradoan:
The new logo is bland and indistinct. And what’s with the wave? Are we a sea-side town or something? The current logo is very distinct and contains the quintessential Fort Collins landmark – Horsetooth.
Not that I’m anti-growth or anything, but do we need a new logo to attract more residents to our town? Are we managing our town like a sports franchise where a new logo will sell more ball caps, jerseys and bobbleheads? What possible value does a new logo add to the city’s revenues or to its residents’ quality of life?
I don’t consider myself an expert on graphic design, but the new city of Fort Collins logo is by far one of the most awful logos I have seen lately. The design lacks character and fails to effectively convey an image of Fort Collins as “The Choice City” as we so eloquently call ourselves.
There was no problem with the old logo that has served Fort Collins well over the past 30 years. I don’t see why our city is spending more than $80,000 for a minimalistic logo when we are in the middle of a budget crisis. It seems Fort Collins leaders are happy about overpaying for mediocre artwork. Look at the sculpture in Old Town if you want further proof.
The sculpture, mentioned above, is another sore spot with the city. It too is pretty awful. No one knew what the artist was carving into this huge piece of white marble in Old Town Square. He has long since finished, but it looks no where near “finished.”
Does the city fear that people won’t know where they are once they arrive in town? Plastering “City of Fort Collins” all over the place makes it seem likes the Parks Department logo or something. Not an inspired graphical representation of what the city has to offer.
Yeah I dunno. It’s frustrating for sure. I think once you start looking for it, the logo is everywhere: city buildings, city cars and trucks, signage, advertising, letter head, utilities, etc. It’s not inspired and it certainly wasn’t necessary, at least not this logo with their charge of updating the city’s image to bring in more tourism. Perhaps a much nicer logo that really knocked your socks off would be worth the cost and hassle of changing it when we don’t have money for other important things around town.
I agree with Betsy’s comment about in town marketing. It’s misguided (and a waste of money). You don’t get people to shop in Old Town by painting billboards on the Highways “Shop Fort Collins First.” The people who live here know this is the “City of Fort Collins” and the people who visit know it is, too. What are the city’s strategic goals? What do the local business owners want and need? (I’m betting it isn’t more signage. It’s probably related to foot traffic, transaction numbers and transaction dollars/item counts. Signage doesn’t bring people in–not at this stage in our evolution. Choices, valuable products and services, and brand names (national and local) bring people/business in.
The $80K logo is a colossal waste of money, and you’re right–wtf. I’m guessing it’s supposed to be a brown foothill with the Poudre flowing out of it, but it’s taken me 4 days to come up with that interpretation. Like you, I thought, where are the waves? I live in semi-arid No Co. …I’m not a big fan of the Coloradoan, but they got this story right. …and Hello, absolutely, there are several firms in town who could have and would have proudly done a better job if our leaders felt it imperative to spend that money on a logo. I wonder who bid and why they weren’t optioned.
You can bet your sweet ass I’ll be paying a lot closer attention to local government and economic development in town.
I, for one, was going to leave this boring city, at least before I saw the new logo. Now I’m sticking around. After all, renewal is the way that I roll. This place is cool! Go Fort Collins!
Haha! So tell us Ryan… was it the sensuous waves or the sexy brown and blue color scheme that got you hooked?
[...] If you’ve been following along from my post about Fort Collins new awful logo. New city logo put on ice The city will stop the implementation of a new logo until it can talk [...]
You know, I know a graphic designer who actually LIVES in the Fort Collins area. I wonder if they tried him, because he would have done a MUCH better job than that for a lot less.