Beleaguered logo

Odd that this issue should arise shortly after I did a big post on local art.  GCDN published this piece on League City's new logo. 

Screengrabbed from a PDF published by GCDN.  I particularly don't like that bottom one because when I look at it, all I see is Hurricane Ike's storm surge covering the lowlands north of Coryell.  And I see the next hurricane's storm surge.  Those waves appear to be overtopping each other and coming straight at me. 

Here are just a few of the issues that I see with the adoption of this thing:

(1) Why weren't residents notified via a realistically-accessible means of information transfer that a logo choice was even being considered? As I've observed in other posts and on one or two GCDN comment forums, I'm signed up to receive pretty much every e-mail blast that the City issues.  A google search of my email stack revealed neither the word "logo" nor the word "marketing" mentioned anywhere in approximately the past six months. 

Expounding on that idea...

(2) Why weren't residents consulted on the final choice that was made?  City Council missed a great opporunity to actually make itself available to its own constituents here because potential logo designs could have easily and cheaply been put to an on-line vote.  When Texas put the new license plate design to a vote a few years ago, people were so overjoyed at the chance to participate in the decision-making that they hobbled the state's computer system:  "We're really excited people want to vote. It tells us we've done the right thing to put it out there," Perkes said. "However, not all of the more than 20 million registered Texans can vote at once. So we've had a few glitches, people have slowed down the system."

The people spoke.  You have to respect the results.  And you have to respect that they were given the opportunity to vote in the first place.

Screengrabbed from this Chron article. 

(3) Why is a commercial representation seen as being so desirable from a marketing standpoint?  Is "who we are" really defined by a sailboat?  How many League City residents own sailboats anyway?  I'm betting it's a tiny minority.  In fact, I can't even name you a single League City resident known to me who self-identifies with sailing.  And I know a fair number of people here. 

(4) If a commercial design has to be chosen, why does it have to represent such a small minority of our geography and our population?  Take a look at a map of the city limits of League City:

Low-res screengrab from Googlemaps. 

We're not a waterfront city.  Kemah and Seabrook are waterfront cities well-defined by their waterfront geography.  We, on the other hand, are characterized by only a miniscule frontage of the type that is suitable for the sailboats that are represented in the logo.

It's about a two-mile stretch north of Marina Bay Drive, where a tiny minority of our population lives. 

Screengrab from this Wikipedia entry. 

 
(5)  Why does the logo have to be so profoundly formulaic?  OMG, could there possibly be a more "been there, done that" choice than a stylized sailboat?  Do you doubt me on this point?  If so, behold this collection of muncipal logos grabbed from the internet during a sixty-seven-second image search that I just did:

I could go on and on with those, but this is the point:  Is a stylized sailboat really the best we could have done?

NO KIDDING!!!  Sailboat logos are so common that Zazzle sells templates for $12.95. 

My bottom line:  This new logo represents a lateral move at best.  It's no less unoriginal than our last logo which, by the way, is only four years old - a fact that eludes to League City's ongoing struggle to define itself (with "struggle" being the term used by the city itself in the opening sentence of this document).

We have only had this one for four years now.  Screengrabbed from this Chron site. 

With a little work and creative iteration, we could do better, folks.  But for that, we'd need the type of participatory opportunities that have yet to be exended by the City of League City.