By Rebecca Boyle, (Bio) rboyle@fortcollinsnow.com
1:05 a.m. MT Mar 28, 2008

Mike Freeman is a little miffed about his new folders.

He only ordered a few, made to cradle promotional materials like a CD about the Mason Corridor, a huge new Natural Areas map and other shiny recruiting items. But Freeman, the city finance director, wants hundreds more so he can embark on his mission of solidifying Fort Collins’ status as a premier place to live and do business.

He can’t order a fresh batch because the folders will need to be printed with the new city logo, which is yet to be determined.

Freeman admits he is baffled by the recent resident backlash—expressed at a City Council meeting and most notably the comment section of the Coloradoan’s Web site—against the city’s new logo.

“I just don’t understand it,” he said.

More than a year ago, city leaders hired a design firm, Nashville-based NorthStar Destination Strategies, to come up with a new brand identity for the city. The branding campaign came about after business leaders, economic development gurus and city finance people realized Fort Collins needed to more effectively market itself in the words of Money Magazine: as America’s best place to live.

When trying to recruit new businesses, the Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Development Authority and other organizations had little to work with besides the city’s good reputation, abundant outdoor lifestyle choices and Colorado State University. They wanted a more cohesive outreach policy, and that’s NorthStar’s expertise.

In Freeman’s mind, at least, a new logo was sort of secondary; the real goal was a new brand. And that’s what has some at City Hall scratching their heads—or more like pulling their hair out.

“This project, although right now there’s a lot of focus on the logo, is not about a logo,” said Kelly DiMartino, the city’s community involvement and communications director. “It’s a larger, economic development, community branding project.”

In that respect, it has been warmly received. Freeman said when the brand—complete with new logo—was unveiled last July, business leaders embraced it. Residents didn’t seem miffed, either.

City staff designed posters, brochures and other material with tag lines like “The only thing we mass-produce is passion” and flags to hang on streetlights with pictures of red fat-tired bikes. Those are often intended for a business-oriented audience, though, and many residents likely haven’t seen them.

“People aren’t necessarily going to see those, because those are very specific economic-development issues,” Freeman said.

But they will see a logo, and many residents apparently didn’t like it. The negative reaction was enough to make City Manager Darin Atteberry back off his plan to gradually phase in replacing the old logo with the new one.

A Truncated Process

City staff will accept requests for proposals until Thursday and will conduct interviews with local design firms through April 1. The process will be completed by July 1. « April 2: 12 p.m.-2 p.m., public forum, Northside Aztlan Center « April 4: Local firm chosen « April 7: 6 p.m.-8 p.m., public forum, Café Columbine & Bakery « April 8: Local firm starts design « May 16-30: Local firm completes logo, and it is posted online « Week of May 19: City accepts feedback forms from residents « June 16: City Manager Darin Atteberry chooses new logo, either the NorthStar logo or a locally designed one « July 1: Logo presented to City Council for ratification “Your Voice” Residents have a new Web site to submit feedback about what defines Fort Collins, which will be used in designing a new logo. Residents can also use the site to share thoughts on city operations and decisions. A community forum is coming soon, but residents can already offer feedback about what the new logo should reflect. The site is at www.fcgov.com/yourvoice.

Residents might be surprised to learn how many fliers, pamphlets, sheets, handouts, DVDs, stickers and, yes, folders are stamped with the iconic geese-over-Horsetooth logo.

The Watergate-era logo was designed before the computer age, when it was not as important to have a clean, sans serif font for the city’s name and an open, readable design. The logo must be shrunk into mere pixels for advertisements and posters, and must be used as a “thumbnail” image for Web site links. When it gets smooshed that small, it’s difficult if not impossible to see the name of the city, so it doesn’t do much good.

The current logo is cumbersome in that way. Say what you want about the abstract swooshes on the new one: It’s easy to see the words “City of Fort Collins.”

A quick comparison of other NorthStar work yields a similar theme—several whimsical icons or logos using clear, simple block text. The firm was paid $67,000 to create a new brand for Greeley, for instance, which also included a more whimsical logo.

Fort Collins city staff reviewed proposals from several companies, including three based in Fort Collins, before choosing NorthStar.

Before the logo was unveiled last summer, about 500 residents were contacted and none of them expressed an overwhelming fondness for the current logo’s inclusion of Horsetooth Rock and flying geese, according to DiMartino and Mayor Doug Hutchinson, who conducted a previous interview about the logo.

Freeman said the only recent feedback on the business end has been from people remarking on the mini-controversy.

“In all the interactions I’ve had with the business community, not one person has mentioned it ... not as a problem,” he said.

The mini-controversy erupted after this newspaper reported Atteberry’s initial plan last month. The Coloradoan later reported on its Web site that the city spent almost $80,000 on the new logo, but that was not the whole truth, according to city officials. The city spent $76,000 on the overall branding campaign: a months-long process that resulted in not only the logo, but several new slogans; new ideas to promote the city and its connection to Colorado State University; new marketing tools and plenty of other material. The logo was $2,500 of that total.

The Coloradoan changed its story to reflect the proper context, according to an email DiMartino sent to city officials. But many residents had already seized upon the larger figure and lashed out against the logo. Residents started complaining to DiMartino and other city leaders, and City Council members declared that the public had not been well-enough informed about the branding and logo process.

That’s when Atteberry decided not to slowly phase in the new logo. Instead, city staff released a request for competing proposals done by local design firms. The applicants will likely be narrowed down to a handful by Friday, March 28, and a local firm will be chosen to work on a new logo by April 4.

The firm will have about six weeks to complete the logo. Once it’s done, local newspapers, including Fort Collins Now, will be asked to print feedback forms for people to mail to the city, and Atteberry will consider that before choosing a final logo on June 16. The quick timeline allows City Council to formally accept the new logo by July 1.

The time crunch might seem painful for some design firms, but they actually don’t have to do much work.

Any new logo done by a local design company must incorporate the city’s key characteristics, as identified by NorthStar. According to NorthStar’s report, people use adjectives like “friendly,” “clean” and “progressive” to describe Fort Collins; CSU and the outdoors are the city’s greatest assets; and the city is sometimes overshadowed by Denver and Boulder.

In the mind of one local design-firm owner, the bulk of the work is already done. But that doesn’t mean the final task will be easy.

“Because of all the money they spent with that initial firm ... we would gather all that up because that is all food for the designers. We’ve got the information we need to do what we need to do,” said Buddy Williams, who owns a franchise of The PR Store, a marketing company. “But typically we would work with an owner or one or two decision-makers in a community. This is going to be different. For any ad agency, most decisions, from a design standpoint, made via committee, aren’t very successful.”

He said he hoped his firm would have a chance to take a crack at it. The PR Shop specializes in low-cost, fast-deadline projects.

That might be a good thing for Williams, because the time crunch is necessary—after all, people like Freeman are waiting to order new folders.

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