The city of Birmingham, Alabama has unveiled its new logo design and revamped government Website using “magic” as its theme. Instead of pulling a rabbit out of the black hat, it uses the city skyline together with a tagline “More Magic Than Ever” written on a red ribbon.

This logo makeover is intended to refresh the identity of Birmingham city so it is more presentable when promoted locally or to other countries across the globe.

According to The Birmingham News, it was the idea of Mayor Larry Langford to use “magic” to hype the city’s economic prowess as the steel capital in the past and as a “health care, business, banking and legal service driven economy” today. Because some people still believe the magic of this city has already died, this facelift could help correct that impression.

Yet, the city government should have paid more attention to the use of “magic” in this campaign. While this is very appropriate for theme parks and other kid-related businesses, it is different in this industry. Magic, among adults, has a negative association with deception or scam. Relating that to a city government might mean omission, corruption, malpractices or even disappearing taxes.

Judging from many negative comments in an AL.com blog, I’m pretty sure that is how the majority interprets magic in government setting. One commenter suggests that the more appropriate tag line is “More Slight of Hand Than Ever” while another person said it was copied from a monopoly board game.

via Daily Dixie

This entry was posted on Friday, January 4th, 2008 at 1:26 pm and is filed under Logo Design News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.