Here, on an overhead screen, is what the Albany City Council looked at on Monday: the old city government logo on the left, and the redesigned new one on the right.
The logo appears on stationery, reports, business cards and so forth. The old one has been around for 20 or 30 years, and when it was new it no doubt looked pretty slick. But as Communications Officer Marilyn Smith told the council — and me later — the bridge looks more like a bed frame (a headboard, more likely, to me) and what’s supposed to be trees resembles a mushroom cloud. The light lines and custom fonts made the image difficult to scale down.
Matt Harrington works for the city in information technology and has a background in graphic design and fine art. He came up with the new logo design using the same elements but bringing them up to date, without the fussiness of the original. Now you can recognize the Ellsworth Street Bridge, and the evergreens resemble the big old Doug firs can you find around Albany’s historic neighborhoods.
As somebody in the audience at Monday’s council work session noted with appreciation, Harrington created a good-looking and appropriate logo without a lot of process, no expensive consultants, no prolonged design competition, just quick and efficient work. Council members seemed to like it too.
The new one won’t replace the original all at once. Marilyn Smith explained: “Our plan is to first replace the old logo where it’s easiest to do — online; on templates for stationery, memos, agendas, reports, and presentations; on business cards for new employees; and email signatures. It will be applied to the non-public-safety vehicle fleet over time and will show up on non-public-safety staff work clothes as new items are ordered or replaced.”
To me, Harrington’s design looks brisk, clear, and purposeful. Which in a city administration is exactly what you want. (hh)
How much has this cost the city so far and what will the final
cost be to the citizens. The city is going to vote on ANOTHTHER
tax in May because they don’t have money!!?? Why don’t they fix
the problems at hand.
By the way, we heard those unneeded and unnecessary center of
the street lights had a matercost of over $311k. What was our final
cost after installation?? $850k.
The first number included installation and posts.
We’re a plain,, red neck blue collar town so what’s wrong with a simple mast head of “City of Albany – Oregon”. No need for expense of silly art work just to keep somebody busy??!!
Wait. Eight lights total cost $311k? $38,750 a piece? Seriously?
There were 14 of them, if I recall correctly.
I kind of like the font and style of the “City of Albany Oregon” on original logo but do think the newer one looks nice, esp the bridge, trees, and home. Is the home depiction based on a particular house or a general representative of vintage Albany homes?
What? No likeness of a homeless person. How insensitive!
The new one is a eye catching for sure.
Well done !
Just another waste of money. You forgot changing logos on city vehicles. There is nothing wrong with the new one. This is as bad as when Albany PD switched from shield badges to star badges…because the new Chief did not like shields. Heh…reminder…it’s NOT your money !
Cost of redoing all the city vehicles is ~$2500 – over a 1-year time-frame.
Lynn Powers designed the first logo and Hasso is right — about 20 years ago. It’s nice that the new design takes pieces of the old including the historic home reference. Lynn also created the “incomplete” star for the police department, but not sure if it is still in use. She designed other logos for the community including WAHS, Albany Partnership for Housing, the former logo of Albany General Hospital and a few businesses. She cared for Albany and it always showed in her work. Her passing was a big loss for our community.
Aren’t we a grass seed town? This looks like a timber town. And it still doesn’t look like a bridge. Why not have a competition amongst the high schoolers? It’ll be their town and it could be designed for free.
Nice, fresh logo!
Give the man a bonus for such good work!! Pay for it via a special assessment to all the curmudgeonly types. You know who you are. Look for it this fall.
I was just wondering. Why do we have a city logo? Who is it there for? We all live in Albany. We know who the city workers are and most all things associated with our city. Wouldn’t just a simple Albany Oregon logo work just as well? No research, no designer, no thousands of dollars spent and no wasting time at City Council meetings quibbling over this issue. Maybe they can concentrate on other issues more important to our city.
Nobody wasted thousands of dollars. A city employee used his talent, as part of his job, which entails a whole lot of other things related to technology, to produce a clean design. And nobody was quibbling about anything. They concentrate on lots of issues that are more important. That doesn’t mean they can’t take a few minutes to be caught up on something like this. (hh)
Logo looks really good. Nice job Matt.
I think it looks great!
I couldn’t help myself. I wasn’t going to say anything else. But, it is so very nice we, the citizens of Albany, have a talent like Mat. I apologize if I made it sound like I was dissing Mat at all. But, along with Mat’s artistic talents did he also come up with a way to pay for all of this? I mean everything associated with the city of Albany will need to have the old logo replaced with the new logo. Seems like an awful lot of money to me for a “logo”. But. If that is what we need to spend our tax dollars on then, more than other issues, I guess the majority of the people who live in Albany want this new logo and will set other issues aside for it.
As I understand it, they put the new logo on stuff when it is routinely acquired. Nobody is going to repaint city vehicles. So no, there’s no extraordinary expense. And the guy’s name is Matt.
I, for one, think that the new logo is much easier on the eyes. I appreciate that the city did not spend a lot of time or money on the design as well as the sensible low cost roll-out.
On the other hand, I can’t wait to vote on the curmudgeon tax!