Earlier this month, Austin unveiled its first-ever unified city logo—a stylized “A” with a blue wave and two green lines meant to represent springs, hills, and the city’s tree canopy. The design, created by Pentagram’s Austin office in collaboration with local agency TKO, is intended as a love letter to the city’s natural landscape and a symbol of civic unity.
Instead, it immediately united residents in something else: criticism.
The city’s current visual identity has long relied on its official seal, a 1919 crest topped with a medieval-style crown, filled with symbols like a cross, wings, and the Lone Star of Texas. More heraldic than modern, it was due for an update but the rollout of the new logo has been anything but smooth. The city’s announcement post drew hundreds of negative comments, many with hundreds of likes in agreement.
One commenter said, “Were you trying for *outdated grocery store* as your theme??”
According to officials, Pentagram and TKO split $200,000 of the $1.1 million budget, with the remainder spent on surveys and community outreach. Pentagram partner DJ Stout, who led the project, told Fast Company the criticism was no surprise. “Designing anything for city government is the ultimate design by committee,” he said, adding that controversy has become a standard feature of civic rebrands.
Stout initially pitched an “Austin star,” but dropped it after concerns it looked too similar to state branding. The final “A” is meant to highlight Barton Springs, Lady Bird Lake, and the Hill Country.
Still, backlash has gained momentum. Petitions to scrap or revise the logo are circulating, while alternative designs, such as one by graphic designer Allan Peters on Instagram, are finding an audience. Peters’s version addresses the common complaints: that the city’s mark looks clinical, reads as “autism,” and relies on a dated font. His cowboy-flavored redesign has been cited in at least one petition as a preferred replacement.
Austin is hardly alone. In 2023, New York City’s “We ❤️ NYC” update was widely panned as a corporate, committee-driven knockoff of Milton Glaser’s iconic “I ❤️ NY.” The echoes are hard to miss: Austin’s new identity is already being dismissed as bland, bureaucratic, and tone-deaf to the city’s character.
It seems, at least for now, that the city will have to “keep things weird” everywhere but in its letterhead.
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