North Star likes to beef up its logos by using swooshes. Can you blame them? I mean, is there any other design strategy a North Star graphic artist could possibly use to create movement and excitement in their design?

Check out the North Star logo for Fort Wayne, Indiana (reproduced above), which Fort Wayne unveiled in January 2007. Have you seen those swooshes before? I have. They're identical to the ones North Star uses in its Fort Collins logo. And how about the tag line, "Room for dreams". It's as cringe-inducing as, "Where renewal is a way of life", which North Star saddled Fort Collins with.

So, given the precedents of the North Star logos for Fort Wayne and the one for Greeley, North Star's Fort Collins logo is derivative and not unique. But Fort Collins paid $2,500 for it.

And as an aside, check out the webpage for the Fort Wayne Convention and Visitor's Bureau, and see how awkward and unpersuasive the Fort Wayne logo looks when deployed electronically. Weigh those unsatisfactory qualities against the (fatuous) criticism of the current Fort Collins logo, which City Manager Darin Atteberry made in today's Coloradoan (City seeks feedback on logo [02-Apr-08]): "The old design has strong community recognition, yet the text is virtually unreadable. This poses significant problems because the goal of a strong logo is name recognition. Logos should also be simple and easy-to-read representations (literal or abstract) of a community's best qualities." I wish Atteberry had been as critical of North Star's Fort Collins logo – because there is no reason to think it will perform any better electronically (or otherwise) than its geeky cousin in Fort Wayne.