There’s nothing quite so controversial as a logo change these days, and now the City of Austin has become the latest to experience just what happens when you try to rebrand.
Last week, the City of Austin unveiled a new “unified” brand, the first cohesive branding project in its history. At the centre of this new “system” is an abstract green and blue-violet “A” created with a continuous ribbon shape meant to reference rivers, the curves of nearby hills, and bridges. A serifed “Austin” wordmark is below this new “A” design.
The colour palette of blue-violet and green draws on the area’s “violet crown” skies and the green canopies of parks and trails. The City worked with Austin agency TKO and Pentagram’s Austin office on the project, with local designer DJ Stout leading the visual brand design.
“The logo itself reflects the hills, rivers, and bridges that serve to connect us to one another,” said Austin’s Chief Communications Director Jessica King in the press release. “The colours were inspired by our surrounding environment, violet crown skies and the green canopies of our parks and trails. We deliberately chose a mark that reminded us of movement to reflect how welcoming, flexible and resilient this community and our employees are.”
City leadership is framing the new centralized brand as a way to unify more than 300 different departments to make City communications easier to recognize.
“We want our community members to be able to identify members of our team as City of Austin employees and trust the services we provide,” City Manager T.C. Broadnax added. “Whether they see the brand on a website, a utility bill, a street sign, or the side of a vehicle, they’ll know exactly who it’s from and what it stands for.”
Austin City Council first proposed a new, modern, cohesive identity for the City in 2018 to be used in place of the original 1916 seal. That 1916 seal, created for a flag contest, remains the official City of Austin seal, but will no longer be used as (nor was it ever meant to) the City’s central, primary brand.
A local report pegs the total rebrand costs at just over $1.1 million US, a figure that, as is typical with these projects, drew immediate attention alongside the look itself on social media.
Public reaction has been mixed, with most not showing support for the new design. On Facebook, comments ranged from calls for more local artist involvement, “We have such a vibrant arts community here. Why not ask them to submit designs?” to blunt assessments comparing the design to “some kind of toothpaste,” or even a “Girl Scout cookie box.”
On Reddit, one designer criticized the process but saw potential in the core idea: “This is what happens when you get focus groups and a ton of uncreative stakeholders involved. I like the ‘A’ mark. With nicer colours and a better typeface, it would be less bad.” Others dismissed it as “clinical” or similar to something you’d get from “a free logo-making app.”
I’m not an Austin resident, I’ve never been to Austin, I’m not even from the same state or country as Austin, so I certainly have no emotional ties or stakes in this. Visually, it’s pretty straightforward with that single, continuous “A”, curved to reference the city’s landscapes, as are the colours. The only negative I see is that it could work for any city that starts with “A”, as most large cities have bridges, rivers, and neighbourhoods as this logo chose to represent; and indeed, all cities have skies and grass, as the colours represent. There’s just nothing distinctly “Austin” about it.
The City plans to roll out the new brand starting on October 1, covering their digital assets first, with physical assets following according to department schedules.
