Design agency Pentagram has unveiled a new city logo for Austin, Texas, featuring green and blue arches that represent the surrounding landscape. The logo, created as part of a comprehensive $1.1 million rebranding effort, was reportedly leaked early and has drawn criticism on social media platforms.
The rebranding initiative aims to establish a consolidated graphic identity for Austin's governmental services. Pentagram collaborated with local studio TKO Advertising on the project, addressing a long-standing issue with the city's fragmented visual identity. Austin's current logo was based on a coat-of-arms design originally submitted for a flag contest in 1916, but the city never developed a comprehensive graphic identity system.
"The City of Austin, which provides important services for its residents, has never had a real identity system since its founding nearly 200 years ago," said Pentagram partner DJ Stout, who led the project with a local Pentagram team. "Because of that, there are over 300 logo variations out there, presenting a very disjointed and chaotic brand identity for this growing, modern city."
The new logo consists of two intersecting arches that form a sloping "A" shape, designed to reflect Austin's natural beauty. The blue foreground arch represents the city's abundant water resources, including the Colorado River and Barton Springs, while the green arch symbolizes Austin's location at the beginning of Texas' verdant Hill Country. Below the logo, an Austin wordmark was created using the serif font Museo Slab, which was chosen for its slightly Western and authoritative appearance.
The design process involved rejecting more traditional Western and governmental motifs, such as a red, white, and blue color palette, after local focus groups provided negative feedback. Stout attributed this preference to Austin's liberal political leanings within a predominantly conservative state. "Austin is very independent-minded and a 'blue island' in a mostly red state," he explained. "Austin is the capital of the state of Texas, but the comprehensive identity system we designed is specifically for Austin's municipal government, not the state."
The logo has already faced criticism on social media, a situation that Stout believes was exacerbated by an early leak. According to him, a "single, lo-res, badly reproduced logo" was "maliciously" leaked to the public before the official launch. "The identity system still hasn't been officially launched, so there's a ton of misinformation and rumors out there in the social media quagmire," Stout said. "We all knew that no matter what was shown to the public it would be controversial and hotly debated because Austin has never had a brand identity, but these unfortunate circumstances have made it worse."
This controversy follows a recent trend of corporate logo changes facing public backlash. American food chain Cracker Barrel recently overhauled its logo but quickly reversed the decision following online criticism. Other major companies, including Google and Walmart, have taken more subtle approaches to their branding updates, avoiding dramatic redesigns that might provoke negative reactions from consumers and the public.
