It took Democratic Governor Hickenlooper’s administration nearly six months, close to $1 million, and assistance from twelve designers and writers to come up with the less-than-inspiring new state logo. Some people likened it to an over-the-road HAZMAT symbol, a carbon monoxide warning, or a battered sign that would be seen along an old country road. “Sophomoric,” “dull,” and “uninspired” were some of the reactions to the design that The Denver Post ran in its letters to the editor. We thought it was the same logo as the Sugarloaf logo.
One of the logo’s early critics, Metro State professor Darrin Duber-Smith, made waves when he announced that his marketing students could do a better job at creating a logo in five minutes. While that may be a bit of a stretch, it just so happens that Duber-Smith followed through on his idea, and gave his students the opportunity to develop their own Colorado logos as a class project.
“The results are in. Duber-Smith may not be the most impartial judge, but he describes his students’ work as ‘incredible for having no formal training and only a couple of days to work on it. Point proven, I guess.'”
In less than a week, the Metro State students came up with a number of good looking logos that captured Colorado, Denver, the mountains, and our cities. While none of these examples are going to get the nod from the state bureaucrats as Colorado’s new logo, we think that Duber-Smith and his students at Metro State proved their point. Post readers were asked to vote on their favorite. Unfortunately, the new state logo received just 13% of the vote.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Colorado’s marketing chief Aaron Kennedy could not be reached for comment by The Denver Post.
They manipulated the research to justify eliminating use of the flag as part of the logo. This, because Governor Hickenlooper may run for President and wants to distance himself from the marijuana industry. The flag is public property and cannot be trademarked. The green triangle can and is trademarked, and will not be available to this "federally-illegal" industry. They don't really care that people from Colorado can't stand the new logo because the real audience is people outside of Colorado that they want to move here and stimulate the economy. This could have had tremendous value in terms of a buy-local campaign. Shouldn't that have been the point? Now it has seriously upset residents and the Denver Post who feel excluding the flag ignores our heritage. The Governor (a non-native) has made a bad move with this decision. Now the whole thing will probably die instead of be corrected as that will only highlight how much money he has wasted under false pretenses. That's the real story.