it looks for me more as logotype of e-shop than as logo for a city..

Hey Lars,

Is the slogan, "that got something" subject to change?

What does your town do? What is its identity?
What is the environment and weather like?

Thats what I would start thinking about on a redesign. I dont know anything about Oldenburg.
I'll google it.

Andrew

There are many swamps and moors, old canals and moats?

http://cla.umn.edu/clanet/marko/olden.htm

hi andrew. you can have a look at www.oldenburg.de (which does not have an english version - worth another campaign *g*) or www.oldenburg-tourist.de

it's up the north of germany, a university city, quite green, 155.000 citizens, about 650 years old, near the north sea, near to the netherlands ... hth

The oldenburg.de panoramas are a nice inspiration. There is lot of good color and texture the stripes on the awnings the lush greens, the brickwork. Collage some of these elements into the letters of Oldenburg?

I'm thinking about Milton Glasers illustration's and logo's for inspiration.

My critique is that it looks hugely dated already- quite alot like a random telecom or .com from the 90's not like a city. The idea may have been to be hip or something but from a tourism point of view I don't think it will help. It seems like a sensitive re-treatment of something with more historical gravitas could lend an air of the contemporary while keeping in touch with history. This design is also hard to read due to the arbitrary colored 'OL' so it's 1st duty is not met - to label or idenitify.

It really is monsterous. Good luck killing it off.

1) It looks 80s. 1980s. Yuk.
2) I don't see any horseshoe.
3) It sucks for one-color rendering.

hhp

If I am role playing as the tourist, it doesn't tell me anything at all. There is nothing there to attract me. As an English speaking American tourist I see "OL" and "DENBURG", which reads as "Ole Denburg" or "Old Denburg". I saw the yellow horseshoe as a cropped "O" graphic representing the "O" in "Oldenburg". In relation to a location, I'm not getting the personality of the town/city from the logo. It looks like a bad identity for a shopping mall

"offical colors for the fast food industry" ... nice one! *g*

by the way: i hope still fits in this thread: does your city have a logo? if so, can you post it? thanks for all comments so far: lars

Whats bugging me is the D against the yellow horseshoe makes it shrink compared to ENBURG, the net effect it looks like three different size typefaces. The slogan makes no sense.

My city has a logo

Well two actually. Daniel what is the NYC one with the liberty crown C and the empire silhouette in the N?

R

so? anymore city logos? i do not even know that city logos are quite common, it's maybe more about CD at all, isn't it?

At the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, they recently had an exhibit of the artist Romare Bearden. His mural for Berkeley California had a element that was taken out as a logo for the city. Here you can see unfortunately tiny versions of the mural and logo. The original mural and the element taken out as a logo are powerful. I imagine that a bit bigger the logo would be very good, but I don't know.

The original element is a profile of the four peoples involved in the city - Native Americans, and those with ancestry in Africa, Europe, and China. All four profiles are iconic and respectful, rather than caricatures.

I would think that ideally a city logo would have this kind of strength and historical associations.

It may not help you much, but there's always this one

And now for something completely different... Solvang is a tourist attraction in California. Here's the logo in full color and a slightly different version in one color.

Below is a collage of a few city seals/logos that I collected from California. I don't know if this is done nationwide, but most cities in California have a unique seal/logo. Very few of these seals are done well. Believe it or not these are some of the better ones.



Hopefully, you'll be able to use these in your argument for Oldenburg. If not, you may consider going to a larger government body and pursuing a larger volume of work by selling this same type of identity campaign that California has. Initiate a nationwide identity campaign where each city has its own seal, or the equivelent.

Similarly, the US is implementing a program where each state has its own coin (25 cent quarter). These types of programs are appealing to the central government and the individual states. It allows states to identify their unique character and pride, but it does so on a centrally/federally controlled medium. Uniformity allowing for individuality

hey scott, thanks for this "massive" selection *g* ... really looking forward to see some other cities on this topic. thanks: lars

What they are currently doing in NYC is a revival of I "heart" NY more than ever, campaign.

Since the country I live in is smaller than some bigger city I find it suit's here nicely.



Here in Estonia we have bed-linen in hotels, vodka lices and all sort of stuff with that sign. Our biggest airline company has it on the side of it's jets and so on. Pretty fresh and simple & fit's everywhere : )

this is the logo of the city
http://www.einherzfuerwien.at/images/logo_stadtwien.gif

the tourist logo
http://www.info.wien.at/wtv/images/logo-e.jpg

i dont know what this is for

my citi has a logo too http://www.ottawa.com
slogan and all sorts of stuff to go with it.

in fact my country has a logo/standards and everything - I think Canada was the first with the "Federal Identity Program" and FIP police (as we call them) who enforce the rules of application all managed by a Treasury Board
http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/fip-pcim/index_e.asp

Vienna is a great city - those graphics are a disgrace.

hhp

I

do reasoch on city, and for get about that log do your own thing....
good loock....
i like to se wht you com up whit.

I love that Estonia mark! Very fresh.

Apparently, my city just got a new logo last month:
http://www.ci.stpaul.mn.us/depts/marketing/logothumbnails/StPaul_logo_3pms.gif

Not sure if I like it yet.

Our twin has a nice mark as well. Hardly refined, but it has a nice retro feel to it:

http://www.ci.stpaul.mn.us/depts/marketing/brandpresskit.html

A little blurb about the city branding phenomenon in Canada, http://www.geocities.com/vince_escanlar/a03-3.html#030317 - about a dozen Canadian examples. I'm not a fan at all of my hometown's new logo (http://www.regina.ca/images/logo.gif).

may i suggest a little modification..