The front page of the Coloradoan reports this morning (07-Mar-08) that the Fort Collins City Manager Darin Atteberry has decided to halt implementation of the new city logo.

Bravo for Atteberry for making the right decision (even though he seems to have been the one who originally signed-off on the logo's adoption). A Coloradoan editorial (09-Mar-08) claims that prior to the logo's approval it was reviewed by Arts Alive, the Downtown Development Authority, Fort Collins Convention and Visitors Bureau, and the Fort Collins Chamber of Commerce.

Here's what Mayor Pro-Tem Kelly Ohlson said about citizen reaction to the logo (Coloradoan, 07-Mar-08):

Ohlson said he heard negative feedback from a wide variety of people from different segments of the community. "The citizens don't like it," Ohlson said. "The city needs to accept that, and now we need to try and fix it. I have never had so much citizen dissatisfaction with an action the city has taken since I was elected and I believe they are right." The new logo design cost the city $2,600 taken from a larger $78,000 economic stimulus effort to "brand" the city.

And finally, for an overview of the logo's technical deficiencies, here's an anonymous critique originally published as a comment at Andy Bosselman's blog in Denver (Andy Bosselman [25-Feb-08], The ugly new $80,000 branding effort for Fort Collins, online at andybosselman.blogspot.com [accessed 07-Mar-08]):

[L]et's be straight forward here. It's awful. From a production standpoint is has issues. Difficult colors to reproduce, no contrast. It has small gaps that will plug up when reproduced on apparel. The tagline is too thin. The curves are janky. It's rookie. And from a very basic understanding of good branding, you have to know how to use it in all mediums. This shows that the company that created is just not good.

That's just from a reproduction perspective. From a design standpoint it is subjective. But great branding agencies know what works. Let's be objective here, does this hold up next to Apple's logo, Target's logo?

It's a critique that applies to many of North Star's logos.