Our Opinion: Council made the right choice on logo
Published 9:55 am Thursday, April 10, 2014
We commend the Austin City Council for making the difficult but correct decision not to move forward with the “talent packed” logo. We’d also like to thank community leaders for their work on the project.
Simply put, the logo didn’t go over with much of the Austin public.
As reported in multiple Herald articles, the logo garnered significant negative feedback on social media and around the community.
The branding committee, a subcommittee under Vision 2020, spent more than a year working on the logo as part of a new brand campaign for Austin, so this must sting for committee members.
Even though the branding committee came under scrutiny during the logo discussion, we commend Vision 2020’s Laura Helle and committee members for their hard work on the project.
We’d also like to commend committee members Janet Anderson and Judy Enright, also city council members, for voting against a project that the community wasn’t behind.
Not every plan is going to work, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of. We hope this can be a learning process for leaders and community members.
As we said in our March 30 editorial, the No. 1 thing needed for a branding campaign is for all of Austin — not just community leaders — to be behind the project.
We’re pleased with the possibility of a contest to take submissions for a logo, which could happen this summer. We hope leaders get people involved early and often with the project.
At the Herald, we hope to promote a robust, ongoing discussion about the best way to move forward. We hope the public remains interested and helps find a logo to best represent Austin.