Fort Collins Picks a Logo ... Finally

At long last—after much hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing—the city has chosen a new logo. It took thousands of dollars and 29 hours of public meetings; it generated more than 5,000 comments to City Hall and was the topic of heated editorializing for months. In short, the community was more passionate about the symbol that represents it than many expected.

“We learned a lot during this process,” City Manager Darin Atteberry said in a press release the day after he told City Council which design he’d chosen. “It’s been wonderful to see that Fort Collins residents are passionate about their community, and they care enough to get involved. We took the feedback to heart, and the final logo reflects those characteristics the community said are most important.”

The decision to choose a new logo began as part of a community branding campaign. The old logo, featuring geese and Horsetooth Rock, was deemed hard to read and outdated. A new selection, designed by Tennessee-based Northstar Destination Strategies, was met with alarm and outrage; many in the community thought it a weak substitute for the existing logo.

The major cause of discontent seemed to be that the new design failed to clearly incorporate any images that represent Fort Collins, something residents felt was inexcusable.

In an effort to resolve the issue, city leaders turned to Linden, a local marketing and design firm in Fort Collins, for guidance and feedback. Linden was commissioned to design their own logo to be thrown into a hat of candidates for residents to weigh in on.

Linden’s creation featured a bubbly design with curves reminiscent of Horsetooth Rock that encased the words “Fort Collins.” A curvy line flowed out from beneath the city name to depict the Poudre River.

It remains to be seen how enthusiastically the community will view the latest and final selection, which is very similar to the first suggestion that caused such a fuss in the first place. The most significant difference is that one of the swooshy lines below the words “City of Fort Collins” now incorporates the shape of Horsetooth Rock.

Linden doesn’t feel snubbed about the decision. “Certainly we would have been honored had our logo been chosen,” Jackie O’Hara, an account manager at Linden, said. “But really the goal was to help the city resolve the great logo debate and we have done that. It was a positive experience for us and we didn’t go into it thinking it would be a win or lose situation.”

She says Linden accomplished what it set out to do, which was mainly to provide crucial feedback to city leaders as to how to make the logo a better representation of Fort Collins.

“We said, ‘here are the main attributes and here are the assets of our community,’” O’Hara said. “Horsetooth really came to the forefront and we said Horsetooth has to be included no matter what you do. It’s what makes us unique. It’s our Golden Gate Bridge or St. Louis Arch, if you will.”

But the truth is that it no longer matters what people think of the new logo—in an interview, Atteberry said the decision is final regardless of how people react. The city, he said, has no more time to spare on the matter. Departments are beginning to run out of business cards and letterhead; they couldn’t order more until they were sure of what logo would be.

Residents can look forward to seeing the new logo on city vehicles, the city Web site, the city’s Channel 14, and city newsletters. But Atteberry said it will be quite a bit more time, up to eight years, before the logo makes its way onto city buildings. He said the city will wait until signs on buildings need to be replaced from natural wear and tear before putting the new logo up.

“That’s just to try and be responsive to our financial circumstances,” he said.

Despite Atteberry’s enthusiastic reaction toward the community feedback, and his feeling that the city reacted well to the logo concern, it comes as no surprise that he also said he’s very excited that the process is over.