Everyone dislikes the terrible new Capitol Hill CoC logo, but no one stepped up with an alternative. Here’s my hour of volunteer work on a Friday afternoon for the neighborhood. I’m not a professional graphic designer and these could definitely be refined, but feel free to critique or submit your own and maybe Capitol Hill businesses could have a logo they deserve.
I stuck with their green theme and attempted to represent the ‘energy and dynamism’ of Capitol Hill the Chamber was looking for by using ‘sound waves’ with the second, while the first is more like walking uphill through a puddle.
I’d love to see anybody else’s half-hour submissions – no doubt they’ll be better than the official one.
Why was a professional design agency not hired to create the new Cap Hill logo?
Personally I am apalled at the lack of thought. Logos are more than just a pretty face.
They require development and process to convey a powerful message with a single glance.
Why is that green used in all of them? Its way Boom Noodle overused. How about a nice forest green or something?
Not the one … yet.
But it is important to derail the crap put out by the “what me worry” C. Hill Chamber people. That one is horrible …. read the posts, most all agree, including many graphic workers …..
Of course who are we to complain? Just the population on the Hill who live and work here, that is all.
Need better … yes, yes, yes.
Sorry Justin.
I like the first one a lot. I like the second one worse than the one proposed.
Don’t give up the day job.
The main effect of these half hour attempts seems to be pointing out that the official version was probably at least a 1-2 hour design project.
http://cheezburger.com/View.aspx?aid=2921574400
Any logo will have to be extensively used to displace my association of the CHS crow with the neighborhood.
I don’t get the second one at all. But I agree… I hope the chamber reopens this project — and that they didn’t spend much of their money on the terrible original design.
Why exactly does the neighborhood need a logo?
OK. I laughed. The image linked above:
I don’t know why they didn’t just have a contest. I’m sure there are lots of art students and freelancers who’d love to add the winning entry to their portfolio. Add in some free crap from representative stores, and it’s win all around.
I agree that the design isn’t amazing, but most designers are pretty rightly opposed to doing work for free in the hopes of eventually getting paid. having a contest is effectively asking a whole lot of people to do a job knowing that only one of them will “win” the prize of being appropriately compensated for their work.
Agreed. The responsible thing would be to hire someone to do the work and not rely on the intern that can draw shapes in powerpoint. Someone who know the inner working of identity work and how to shape a vision into a coherent visual representation. You hire an architect to design your home or building. hire a designer to design you identity. There’s no difference.
I would love to see the traditional pillar’d sign, with the CHS crow.
I think that combination would look fabulous, simple.
I’d like to see it done by a local professional, and I’m sure there’s awesome local talent who wouldn’t charge much to have a very nice looking logo.
Who is working on something. How do we submit this and get it changed? This is pretty bad.
Agreeing with Josh, and adding: it’s called working on spec, and it’s not done because it devalues the industry. What do you do? Would you mind doing it for me, for free? I’ll tell all your friends that you did a good job, and that should be enough compensation, right?
NO!SPEC: http://www.no-spec.com/
Agreeing with Josh, and adding: it’s called working on spec, and it’s not done because it devalues the industry. What do you do? Would you mind doing it for me, for free? I’ll tell all your friends that you did a good job, and that should be enough compensation, right?
NO!SPEC: http://www.no-spec.com/
Contrary to what a lot of commenters seem to think, the original Slog post noted that the logo was done by a Bellevue ad firm.
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2009/12/02/meet-th
I’m not saying it’s any good, but it wasn’t done by someone inside CHCC. I think what probably happened is CHCC couldn’t pay Kite a lot of money, so they got the amount of work they could afford, which probably wasn’t much. :/
Glad to hear that people are still interested in trying to make something better happen – although it sounds like the Chamber is oblivious that it paid (presumably) serious money for a hot mess. Good luck to anybody trying to convince them of that.
Obviously, a compelling logo takes significant time and development by professionals. And I’m not endorsing spec work. I was just attempting to show if somebody could design something better in half an hour, there’s a real problem. I also took it as a challenge/design exercise because people always complain and say ‘Even I could do better’, but don’t actually try. So this was my try. (For the record, I don’t really like the second one either – but was trying to adhere to their brief. I doubt it’s possible to represent “inclusivity, energy, diversity and dynamism” and end up with a decent logo.)
Although I’m not sure if the Capitol Hill pillared sign is still a good representation of the neighborhood, I’d love to see it referenced/reworked. Possibly with a crow.
http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/phail-ad
At least it isn’t as bad as Philly’s new logo.
Becoming quite clear that the city and state are some sort of Polish / Little Brother / Canadian / Gays in the 80’s -type bigoted butt of marketing firm jokes.
Only thing more sad than good Ole straight boy networks still trying to dick over gays is that
Cap Hill Chamber was so easily duped.