The city of Midland, Michigan has unveiled its new logo design to build a consistent, energetic and strong brand identity to help attract business investors, professional workers and tourists.

This fresh city logo features the name of “Midland” in all capital letters, a set of square boxes in different colors at the right side, and the tagline “A Million Brilliant Possibilities”. Well, the colorful boxes are not confetti but a symbol of Midland’s colored directional road signs which promote the best places in the city.

Midland hasn’t changed its logo in recent years nor used it to unify the city. According to the designers, the city is still perceived as the “City of Modern Explorers”. Hopefully, this re-branding initiative will tell the world that there are more things to do and discover at Midland.

Just like any business, having a recognizable logo and unique slogan enhance brand image. But more than a mere redesign it should be accompanied by some significant changes. A symbol, no matter how creative, is just a symbol unless you put meaning to it.

via The Bay City Times

Citi Field, the new world-class 45,000-seat stadium and official home of Major League Baseball team New York Mets, has unveiled its official logo in preparation for the grand opening in early 2009. Based on the partnership signed by both parties, this will be the official baseball stadium in the next 20 to 40 years.

Obviously, Citi’s globally recognized emblem is the main feature of this new logo design. After all, Citi had free artistic license to choose its own design and colors. The corporate logo is enclosed in a baseball playing field or diamond with royal blue color.

It is linked to an orange banner with the text “Field” using a font very similar to the one used on another major league baseball park and former home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Ebbets Field. According to the developers, Ebbets served as the main inspiration for the design of Citi Field. The team is grateful to Citi since it adopted its colors (orange and royal blue) and symbol of baseball diamond shape for the new logo.

Recently, the baseball team created a commemorative logo as farewell gift to its longtime home since 1964, Shea Stadium.

via MLB

A new logo design was developed for Killeen City, Texas to attract new visitors, businesses and new residents as well as enhance its overall brand image. Unfortunately, the city was portrayed in a Washington Post article in 2004 as “a scruffy (military) town of tattoo parlors and auto body shops, Chinese restaurants and pawn shops.”

Since then, the city has been struggling to get rid of that stigma. That’s why they came up with a new branding strategy to reflect the city’s aspirations. The new city logo is supposed to capture the essence of this transformation.

From its current design featuring letter “K” with a red line, a star at the top and tagline “The city without limits”, the creative team simply changed the red line to a green stem, a yellow rose at the top, and the tagline “Where Freedom Grows”. Unfortunately, the alteration is not equally radical as its aspirations.

According to the creative team, the yellow rose represents the military for this type of flower was planted during the World War II to honor war victims.

Moreover, the new logo is a product of extensive research started in September 2006 among community leaders, residents, and even surrounding communities of Killeen.

via Killeen Daily Herald

Orange County has launched its new county logo design as part of its wide-ranging efforts to attract more visitors to the region and enhance its brand image. However, the public immediately saw its resemblance to the smash-hit TV drama series “The O.C.”

Both logo designs share the same graphics and font. The difference lies on additional elements of the new Orange County logo like the small blue wave cresting and the tagline “Forever Summer”.

Admittedly, the brains behind the new Orange County logo believe using a similar looking logo is a smart move to extend the seductive “fun-and-sun image” popularized by this TV series to encourage tourists to visit.

The overall marketing direction is not to create a new identity but to “leverage existing perceptions” to its favor. Aside from placing the new logo on newspapers and hotel pamphlets, it will be seen on gateways sign of every entrance to the region.

Is there any trademark infringement? According to Orange County Tourism Council, the patent was cleared by a trademark expert. However, other trademark experts do not share the same sentiment. Unfortunately, “O.C.” trademark owner Warner Bros declined to comment on this issue.

via OC Register

For 30 years, the city logo featuring geese flying over the mountain represents Fort Collins, Colorado. Now, the city believes it’s time to have a branding makeover and embrace modernism, ironically before the start of migrating season.

This change is essentially captured by the new logo design featuring a “curvy, abstract mountain shape in brown, connected to an equally abstract blue river-like swoosh.” It symbolizes the mountains and Poudre River. This new logo is also accompanied with a tagline “Where renewal is a way of life” (not seen on the image above) on all printed materials such as letterheads and uniforms.

The decision to drop the old logo came from a survey. Even though Fort Collins is known for being beautiful, charming and friendly, it is perceived simply as a college town since it’s the home of the esteemed Colorado State University. To make matters worse, it has a stained image of being anti-business and anti-growth.

Unlike other city logo makeovers, the transition in Fort Collins will be slow. According to the authorities, it will take up to 8 years to implement this change since they would like to consume all the current printed materials with the flying geese logo design.

On the other hand, some people do not see the value and cost of the new design very appropriate. Aside from being bland and indistinct, some questioned why the city spent $80,000 on the survey about the image of Fort Collins when it is cutting back on its public services such as police and library operations.

via coloradoan.com