For us, as the designers who ultimately were chosen among the competition to develop our initial logo designs to the final logo, it’s certainly been a long process as well—

but that journey ends today.

Today, the new Colorado Springs logo, and the now temporary marketing slogan (instead of a permanent city tagline) of “live it up” hits the streets.

With the help of an open Branding Task Force and dedicated and thoughtful Design Curator Team, we’ve gone from this:

to this, our new logo:

We also worked with the tagline.  When we first heard the tagline of “live it up”, we honestly cringed.  Once we heard their explanation and how they came up with the sentiment of living it up–living at a high altitude, with big plans and expectations of excellence–it made a lot more sense, but those sentiments were NOT being communicated in a tagline that made everyone envision Spring Break in Cabo 2012.

What we presented to the Curator Team was this idea that the city and the logo shouldn’t have a permanent tagline–our city is much too diverse for that.  ”Live it up” should be a temporary slogan in an ad campaign that rolls out the new logo, the new brand, the new identity to be adopted.  If the slogan catches on, it’s a de facto tagline (think “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”.)  If the city doesn’t adopt it, the logo lives on and a new slogan and marketing campaign can be launched in the future.

So we went from a permanent tagline represented like this:

to this:

We couldn’t be more excited to have this logo represent our city.

We hope to see these all around the city — you can pick them up yourself at the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau downtown, or just tune in as we might be just cooking up a little giveaway for you.

How did we get here?

Being a high-profile design project, the road to get here is quite interesting and got a whole lot of press.  Just google “colorado springs logo” and you’ll start to get an idea of how we got here, but better yet–we’ve corralled a few links for those of you who want to read a little more about how we got here:

• Facebook Group “Rebrand the Springs” bringing attention to the issues
• A humorous website by our friends at CoPilot Creative getting community feedback
• Huffington Post article about the beginning of the process, including the original logo, video and criticism
• Gazette Article about Fixer Creative chosen as the logo design team
• Read about the process from start to finish, the curator team, design process, FAQ’s 

We have to say, though: It takes a village to raise a logo, folks. From the great guys at Magneti Marketing who started the Rebrand the Springs initiative to get us a new logo, to the Branding Task Force and CVB who, honestly, have been actually open, responsive and supportive to a new creative process (instead of just giving us lip service), our Curator Team, headed by the ever fantastic Design Rangers who suggested the process and guided the rest of the all-star team to give us a committee that actually produced something great without devolving into cliches or fistfights (have you ever worked with a committee?)—we’re just saying, it took a LOT of people to get here. So, thanks.

So, the big question–what do you think? We’ve love to hear from you! Weigh in below with a comment, head on over to our Facebook page to drop us a line (and get more info on a giveaway coming up soon) or tell us what you think on Twitter–we’re @fixercreative and you can use the #NewCOSLogo to tell us what you think!

UPDATED:

Many of you love it (we’re so glad) and want to get your hands on some of the decals. Get ‘em at the following places:

• CVB Visitor Center (515 S Cascade)
• The Blue Star Restaurant (1625 S Tejon),
• Nosh 121 (Plaza of the Rockies, 121 South Tejon Street)
• LA’AU’s Taco Shop (1605 S. Cascade Ave.)
• The CSK Group (Hibbard Building 19 S. Tejon Street-4th Floor)
• The Greater Colorado Springs Chamber and EDC (102 South Tejon, Suite 430).

Fixer Creative’s recently redesigned menu for Shuga’s Restaurant and Bar is featured on the popular Art of the Menu blog today!  [Insert loud 'Hooray!' here]

Let me tell you a little bit about the awesome folks behind Art of the Menu.  We have a special place in our hearts for other husband-and-wife creative teams out there, and the duo behind UnderConsideration has long been a favorite of ours.

UnderConsideration is “a graphic design enterprise that runs a network of blogs, publishes books, organizes live events and judged competitions, and designs for clients.”  Several of their blogs about current design happening in the world (namely, Quipsologies, Brand New and For Print Only) are viewed on a near daily basis here at Fixer HQ, and their newer blog, Art of the Menu, specifically about “cataloguing the underrated creativity of menus from around the world”, is equally fantastic and in heavy rotation around the office.

So when we saw that our menu design for Shuga’s was their featured menu today, we got all excited.  (Psst – you can read more behind the design of Shuga’s menu here and here)

We’d be lying if we didn’t say we’re a little aw-shucks-y at the moment, as we’re such BIG nerds about fans of Art of the Menu, and are thrilled to see such Shuga’s get a big old spotlight aimed at their great restaurant and menu today.

Check out Fixer Creative’s menu for Shuga’s on Art of the Menu

[P.S. Their current web ad today is a big, black X that appears on your screen and frightens the bejeezus out of you (or, at least it did us), but you can just close that little sucker by clicking the little X in the upper right hand corner of the ad.  And perhaps don't scream as loud as we did and scare the neighbors.  Yay for attention-grabbing ad promos for ADC Young Guns!]

Many.

Have we mentioned many?

We have made some pretty fantastic (and scary) discoveries as we’ve cruised around the downtown Colorado Springs neighborhoods we’re hoping to call home, but this, so far, has been our very favorite:

This is a mid-century stove that was used by the couple who owned this house for 50 years, and it looks BRAND NEW.  I mean, if we bought this house, this would literally be our working stove for the forseeable future.  The burners pull out of that middle section.  Oh, how we LOVE mid-century appliance design!

Alas, as charming as we found the stove and the house in general, it was a bit too much space and work to get it up to snuff.  Apparently our moniker of Fixer does not apply to massive home renovations.  But we’ll always remember the stove that might have been.

We don’t just like to toot our own horn around here, but we are definitely first in line to toot the horns of our clients (tooting horns apparently being one of the many services we provide here at Fixer Creative). Unrelated: We are also definitely children of the 80′s (hence the title).

We recently worked with the lovely owners of Shuga’s Restaurant & Bar, the most charming little establishment just south of downtown Colorado Springs, to redesign their menu. Full disclosure: We’ve adored this place for years, and had many a meal, business meeting and drink there, in addition to having it be the location of our wedding rehearsal dinner. When Alexius and Kurt contacted us to update their menu, we were thrilled.

Take a sec to check out the new menus, and then come right back.  We’ll wait for you.

We loved how they turned out , and after working hard on this project, we wanted to celebrate with one of Shuga’s many delightful cocktails–and then we realized that there were several other people we’ve had the pleasure of working with recently who deserved a similar celebration for the hard work they do.

And, wouldn’t you know it, Shuga’s recently set up the coolest way to do exactly that.  Featured prominently behind the Shuga’s bar is a board that lets you buy drinks for friends who can then be treated to a drink (on you) the next time they come in. Could that possibly be more fun? We think not.

The weather is perfect to show Shuga’s some love and throw some love at your friends while you’re at it–although, you may want to wait just a few days, as SOMEONE has gone and  monopolized the board with a few celebratory cocktails for some great people doing great work here in Colorado Springs. (Glad you have a big board, Shuga’s!)

Oh, and when you check out the new menus, we’d love to hear what you think–just leave us a comment here on the blog, or tweet, facebook, fedex a cupcake package, or just give us high/low fives when you see us around town.

We’ve been rootin’ around in Draplin’s extensive Flickr archive and feeling right at home in his vast collection of design nostalgia. It’s absolutely worth a look, or, in our case, an attention-sucking vortex of time.

HIS (Troy) FAVORITE THING OF THE DAY:

HER (Sara) FAVORITE THING OF THE DAY:

We had the opportunity to work on some great projects in 2011, so we’re pleased as punch that every single one of our submissions was recognized for an award!   You can see a few of our submissions here, here and here (the rest are so hot off the press, we’ll be popping them up soon!)

We got to meet several of the judges earlier this month, and they could not have been nicer to us here at FCC.

A little background: The AAF (American Advertising Federation) exists to “inspire, educate, and motivate local businesses, creatives and advertising professionals.” In other words, our kind of people! Every year each chapter hosts the Addy Awards, which is like a local-version of the Oscars, but for Advertising/Marketing Design. Each submissions are judged by top-tier professionals (read: the big dogs from the big cities) and given Silver, Gold and Best In Show awards. The gold winners go on to compete regionally and nationally.

We love doing great work–but mail telling us that our work is winning some fancy awards? Well, that’s just icing on the cake. And now we’re hungry for cake — thanks a lot, Addy’s.

Oh, and check out their fancy new website here — we think it looks great and are proud to have worked on it along with some other stellar people. We can’t wait to see all the award-winning work produced locally this year at the Addy’s.

But we seriously have to go get cake now, before one of us moves into certain phases of dessert-oriented delerium. We’ll let you guess which one.

Welcome!

We’re Fixer Creative Co., a husband-and-wife team who spends time either creating awesome things or looking at awesome things. ART+COPY is our blog where we’ll show you all the best things we see, create and do.

Keep up with us here on the blog (we recommend bookmarking it to make it easy), and follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get cool things on the reg. We promise you won’t get the same thing three times (how annoying is that, btw?)