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South Grand Branding
Just happened upon this blog post this morning and saw that South Grand (one of our many beloved neighborhoods) is due for a rebrand. Now, we're not sure who's behind these but we can't really say they capture any of the history, culture or attitude behind the South Grand neighborhood and that the typography is simply missing the mark.
Not trying to call anyone out or bash anyone's work but rebranding parts of a city that we all live/work in is a serious task and something that should be approached with some more thought. What do you think?
Blog Post
http://stldotage.blogspot.com/2010/05/south-grand-branding.html
Facebook page on South Grand options.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=173180&id=135315504786&ref=mf
Comments
P.S. Interesting to note the comments by the generally unenthusiastic facebook users...
They feel like t-shirt logos.
So they would be fine for something disposable like that, but as far as a logo to go on signage and have a long shelf life I think they need to be more timeless and reflect the area better.
The typography on all of these is very weak, and overall the feel of the design is tapping into a grunge trend that is already outdated.
The first example makes me extremely claustrophobic. The poor G and D in Grand! What have they done to deserve to be so squished and violated?
The second one - the purple isn't following the gold outline at the bottom of the shape, which gives the linework a messy, unfinished appearance, but not in a purposeful or meaningful way. And the typeface, I'm not understanding the connection of an ethnically rich area with such technology inspired letterforms. What's up with the dragon?
There is something that could work in number 3, I enjoy the GRAND-ness of the word GRAND. The letters are standing tall and proud, but I'm not sure about the grunge, the colors or the illustratory streamline photo deal.
Overall, the color story in any of these isn't clear to me. What is the relationship of any of these colors to the area?
Noting this article has made me investigate and focus on some of the good and bad St. Louis neighborhood brandings...
http://www.midtownalley.com/index.html
http://visittheloop.com/
http://www.tourdegrove.com/about/
http://thecwe.org/
http://stlouis.missouri.org/cliftonheights/
Does anyone know of more?
Check out this rubbish from my neighborhood. The South Hampton neighborhood actually held a logo contest for this. It comes fully-equipped with the Gateway Arch as any STL logo should be right? Many residents refer to the area as SOHA which actually has possibilities, but they went the contest route instead.
http://stlouis.missouri.org/southampton/index.cgi/
They seem outdated (90s grunge). I DO like the "GRAND" type in the third one though.
I agree with Shiner about the dragon. What's up with that?
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