Signed & Sealed

Madison's most familiar logos are a big part of the city's identity

by

Madison has been blessed with an iconic skyline that gives it a strong visual identity.

But its true self-portrait can be found in the way its movers and shakers project themselves graphically to the public. From international brands to the rock band downstairs, every local player (including the city itself) needs a good logo -- a symbol that will stick.

Arriving at that trademark can be a harrowing task. In coming up with a logo, designers have the responsibility of devising a picture that's worth a 1,000-word sales pitch, that defines the ethos of the enterprise and hooks the eye with a combination of familiarity and novelty.

In Madison, where the populace is well educated, logo designs have the liberty to be sophisticated, yet good designers know that it's the simplest designs that often cast the broadest net.

What follows is an informal roundup of the better-known logo designs seen around town, with an eye to the locally produced crop. In many cases the typography has been removed in an effort to focus more on imagery than words. Some were the product of outstate branding campaigns that cost tens of thousands of dollars. Others were drawn by the company's proprietors for diddly. Whether born from sleek laptops or scribbled cocktail napkins, this gallery of marks can be seen as Madison's collective wink to the world.

Contested results

As the official symbol of a city government, it's certainly unconventional, yet the way the current Madison logo was selected symbolizes the city more than any visual aspect of the design.

In a plan hatched between then-Wisconsin State Journal editor Tom Still and then-Mayor Sue Bauman, a contest to design a new city logo was touted through then-Madison Newspapers Inc. as part of its sponsorship of the yearlong Celebrate 2000 project. Divided into "adult," "youth" and "whimsical" categories, the contest put few limits on the designers. Well, there was a strong suggestion that the winning design should reflect how Madison had changed (hint: include the new Monona Terrace).

The existing logo, created 20 years previously by Carrie Scherpelz of the local firm Reed-Sendrecke, reflected a 1970s fascination with international symbols. By 1999, it was showing its age and was derided as the "milk carton logo" and "the outhouses on the lake."

Bauman admired the "new spirit" that other municipalities' logos now displayed. She asked only that she choose the final design and that it not cost the city anything. Sponsors would provide the 15 prizes, with $750 going to the winning adult designer.

After receiving over 500 entries, a panel of designers from Madison Newspapers, city arts administrators and Scherpelz selected five winning entries in each of the three categories. Of the five adult winners, the mayor would then choose the city's official emblem.

The panel had awarded first place to a stylized alignment of Capitol and convention center behind rolling lake waves, submitted by local designer Julie Mueller. But Bauman (and the voting public at a Celebrate 2000 fair) preferred the third-place finisher, a presentation of the same scene but rendered as light and airy as whipped cream. For that logo, Cambridge native and recent UW grad Lia Miternique wanted to keep the scene full of the fun and energy she enjoyed in the city before she embarked on a design career in Lake Oswego, Ore.

Still, Miternique's choice of typeface perturbed Bauman, who wanted to swap it with lettering from another entry. As was made possible in the contest rules, the design was passed to Reed-Sendrecke for some pro bono refinement.

A sailboat was removed and a new color scheme deployed. "Madison" was recast in the typeface Mistral, a fanciful font common to fashion mags and greeting cards that echoes the logo's loose strokes. The final design was unveiled in June 2000.

Now 10 years old, the logo has not exactly set the city aflame. "I don't like our logo very much. Whimsical, but not in a good way," says Mayor Dave Cieslewicz. "Having said that, I wouldn't put logo redesign at the top of my agenda right now."

An attempt to elicit a critique from the city's webmaster drew only a hushed chuckle. Even the winning designers feel a vague dissatisfaction, with contest champ Mueller claiming to have never received her $750. Miternique, too, says, "I don't recall receiving anything for winning."

Metal round

"City engineering is off on its own," says Mayor Bauman when asked about the arty manhole covers that have for all intents and purposes taken over the city's official logo as a badge of civic pride.

Designed by Mark Schmitz and Tina Remy of Madison's D (Zebra Dog) Studios in 2006, the popular "sewer access cover" design began as a request from city engineer Larry Nelson for an emblem to adorn the Cottage Grove Road bridge, which spans Interstate 39-90.

Schmitz produced a dynamic low-angle shot f a radiant Capitol dome split between day and night, trumpeting a city that never sleeps, and rendered as if by Marvel Comics. Coincidentally in need of new sewer lids, the engineering heads then worked with the Neenah Foundry to transfer the design to 175 discs of 90-pound cast iron. During this leap, the design lost its stars, and "they embossed where they should have debossed," remarks Schmitz. A Madison native with longtime family roots in the area, he still beams with pride at his creation.

Dome, sweet dome

Logos featuring the Capitol building are a dime a dozen, which makes finding an original take as rare as a public bathroom on the Square.

In the 1980s no image could be more perfect for the first Taste of Madison festivals than this Capitol-as-silver-serving-platter. Reflecting the growth of the event over the years into a multi-music-stage extravaganza, the festival changed its logo in 2008 to something a little less formal.

Hands-down best use of the city's silhouetted skyline in a logo has to be Madison Property Management's key, cut to local specs.

Patch work

Long before there were logos, there was heraldry and coats of arms that represented authority. The logo of the Madison Fire Department, set within an eight-point Maltese cross, brings up an old tale about similarly adorned knights of the First Crusades. These Christian warriors were said to have risked their lives extinguishing their brethren when set afire by Saracens hurling flaming oil. Today the cross is a symbol of firefighters' willingness to sacrifice their safety in order to save others. Anyone have a church-state conflict with that?

The Madison Police Department logo is unique in Madison iconography in that in includes the lakes, or at least two of them, all protected within the traditional three-sided shield.

While it's hard to go wrong showing our geography, the map is marred by a clumsy, big-footed Capitol building that looks less like it's straddling an isthmus and more like it's sitting in puddles.

Favorite suns

Not many 5-year-olds undergo makeovers, but the young logo for the Overture Center was changed as part of an extensive rebranding process that used focus groups to gauge people's feelings about the center and its building. When people were asked about the original logo, the respondents felt it lacked an architectural element that tied it to the building.

Created "100% pro bono" by Knupp & Watson from their focus data, the new sun logo that arose in 2009 is based on the view from the third-floor balcony of the Overture lobby's oculus -- the big hole in the floor -- and now radiates a warm welcome.

After fire burned up her rock club, Cathy Dethmers sought to continue the spirit of O'Cayz Corral with a brand new club, the High Noon Saloon, that continued O'Cayz's Western theme. For its logo, Kevin Wade of Planet Propaganda came up with an old woodcut sun and type font that captured the gothic weirdness of old wanted posters. But Dethmers felt the sun looked "too happy, too stoned," and suggested a more sinister look by transplanting the arched eyebrow of the old O'Cayz guy and adding the devilish tongue shooting lightning bolts.

Theater types

Even though the old movie-house's style was originally Italianate, Barrymore Theatre founder Richard "Sich" Sloane and designer Mike Tincher went through dozens of ideas and fonts before deciding upon the Latin-deco logo font Sinaloa, named for a Mexican state. Powered by a tropical color scheme uncommon to old theaters, the logo's style has become even more apropos with the installation of those bizarre Mexican masks inside the theater's lobby.

Since its opening in 1906, the Majestic Theatre has probably had more logomarks than just about any other business in town. Current owners Matt Gerding and Scott Leslie worked with local wizards Swink Inc. to immortalize a neon M from the theater's retro marquee in a stressed-out style.

The graphics always greener

Keeping up with metropolis next door can be a challenge, but Madison's neighbors put out the welcome mat with logos that are as varied as they are earnest.

Fitchburg indulges in some boosterism with its town hall portrait and "get to know us!" plea.

Sun Prairie offers a brave Pop Art sun that could be mistaken for a bomb exploding behind enemy lines.

Middleton residents raised their pitchforks over the $42,500 price tag of their new logo without realizing it was just one part of an extensive branding campaign that involved public-input workshops, signage standards, vehicle graphics, letterhead, a website and an entrance monument.

Verona's logo juggles three motifs at once, with a heraldic shield, an antique carriage and '70s-style symbols representing people and agriculture.

Monona flirted with a swooshy new logo in 2008, but ultimately fell back on a version of the seagull logo it's been using since becoming a city in 1969.

Motion seconded

Contrary to local urban legend, former UW football coach Barry Alvarez did not design the ubiquitous "motion W" logo that now adorns team helmets and Badger fan apparel. That honor goes to Ric Suchanek, a graphic designer at Rayovac, who in 1990 was yanked from a meeting by the company president. His boss hated the Badgers' blocky W helmets and wanted to see Suchanek come up with some alternative designs.

After the company obtained blank helmets from the UW athletic department with the promise that the project wouldn't cost a thing, Suchanek went to work, producing eight designs, a different one for each side of four helmets. An impromptu meeting with new coach Alvarez, athletic director Pat Richter and other bigwigs brought encouraging responses and a request for more prototypes.

Suchanek cranked out a dozen more designs, including one featuring Ws that wrapped around to meet at the back of the helmet. While that design was favored by many, Alvarez nixed it as being more suitable to the Pac 10 conference. When Suchanek conceived the forward-minded motion W, Alvarez liked it right away. The design was rushed into production to make it in time for the first game of the 1991 season.

Since then, it's been all wine and Rose Bowls. The logo was an immediate hit, and, stoked by a winning football team, inventories of the new Badger souvenirs were gone with the W.

The motion style even has created a bit of a movement, so to speak, with area high schools warping their own schools' initials in hopes of boosting their athletic departments.

So how was Alvarez ever mistaken as the designer? In 1993, during a game against Michigan State played in Tokyo (and broadcast to local fans after midnight), Alvarez gave a half-time interview in which he took credit for the new helmet design. Suchanek's mother called her son immediately, outraged that Barry denied him his due.

But Suchanek can't complain. Aside from getting his own helmet and a jersey with his name on it, he has season tickets to UW football games for as long as the W stays in motion.

Bucky's wild ride

The classic Bucky Badger entered Madison at the foot of State Street, sold as a decal by Brown's Book Store in 1940. Bucky was given life by Art Evans, a California commercial artist who also created Minnesota's Goldy Gopher and Purdue Pete the Boilermaker.

While Bucky proved to be the Big Man on Campus for decades, he had a secret: He wasn't registered -- as a trademark. So for years the poor guy was exploited with glee by bootlegging T-shirt printers. He was dressed in a Mao jacket with fist raised ("Go Big Red"), as a Rastafarian ("Go Big Dread") and with middle finger raised during the teaching assistant strikes ("Fuck 'em Bucky"). The university put a stop to such frivolity by having Bucky spayed and neutered as a trademark in 1988.

In 2003 he donned a motion W sweater and underwent a streamlining buzz cut in order to appeal more to youngsters, and to print more cleanly at smaller sizes. Bucky became a charter member of the collegiate division of the Mascot Hall of Fame in 2006.

Local characters: A quiz

These initials represent the main (but not necessarily the first) letter in a local logo. Can you match the monogram with the local business or civic institution? [Answers below.]

Answers to quiz: Alliant Energy; Babes; Candinas Chocolatiers; DuWayne's Salon; Madison East Purgolders; Furthermore Beer; Gialamas Company; Hooper Construction; Independent Living; Johnson Bank; Kayser Ford; Literacy Network; (Madison) Freakfest; Neckerman Agency; Oakwood Village; Physicians Plus; Studio Quest; Rubin's Furniture; Samba Brazilian Grill; Thorstad Chevrolet; University Square; Victor Allen Coffee; Wisconsin Public Television; Xer-Lith Printing; Wisconsin Youth Company; Zimbrick Inc.

Historical marker

In an attempt to increase its marketing and appeal to young people, the Wisconsin Historical Society launched its friendly "hi story" logo in 2001, designed by Boelter & Lincoln to make WHS a little more edgy and hip. But the response was less than enthusiastic, hardly a surprise considering that history buffs aren't usually noted for taking to the latest fad.

As marketing director Julie Raye said, "The essence of branding is not trying to be something you're not." After consulting with Mark Schmitz of ZD Studios, the required hint of reverence was returned with a new scrolled W logo in 2008. Featuring the Union blue of the Wisconsin flag, the logo has spawned a series of 10 similarly designed historical markers for specific sites such as Circus World Museum and Villa Louis.

Edifice complex

Creating the logo for the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired Monona Terrace could have been the most daunting design job in town, but the project was a natural in the hands of Dino Maniaci, head of MANI Inc. and also owner of dog salon SpaWoof and gay sports bar Woof's. Having previously dealt with the licensing strictures of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation when designing wrapping paper, Maniaci was the obvious choice of the Madison Convention & Visitors Bureau to design the logo. Inspired by Wright's own "red square" mark, he captured the center's grinning visage with just the right economy of line.

Matching its new digs, the new Madison Children's Museum logo was the winner of an online design contest. It was open to the whole world, and over 750 entries were submitted. The winner was Madison graphic designer Heather Knox, who had visited the museum many times with her 5-year-old daughter Olivia. "I wanted her to be able to say, 'My mommy made that!'" says Knox.

Beastly imagery

Mythed opportunities

The Argus Bar stands in the same spot as Madison's first newspaper, The Argus, did in 1847, named for the giant with a hundred eyes from Greek mythology. The current owner saw fit to resurrect the all-seeing beast with help from a goth font.

While trying to imagine a logo design for her family's new Nau-Ti-Gal restaurant, Betty von Rutenburg had a eureka moment when she spied her son's blond girlfriend posing coyly across the hood of his red sports car. Local artist Bob Giese was the one who added the fins.

Shape shifters

Jerry Chazen wanted a logo that would lend his new Chazen Museum "a national look," so in 2005, Chicago designers came up with a solid blend of classic and modern, smartly echoing the museum's initials. Perhaps a local firm would have noticed the similarity to the Madison Metropolitan School District's 2004 arrangement of the same shapes, suggesting a sort of pencil-stub student.

Predating the design by 20 years is that of the Madison Central Montessori School, where the shapes are the same as those used in specific lessons.

Assume the juxtaposition

The creative use of negative space is a design technique that not only adds another dimension to any logo, but allows two ideas to occupy the same place at the same time. This is obvious in the MG&E logo, where heat and light combine to take the place of an ampersand.

The Tellurian UCAN logo was actually designed by a meeting of clients battling chemical dependency, and later the mark was refined into its current form, showing an off-balance figure hollowed by a shape suggesting an extended beaker of chemicals. Tellurian's old initials, TCI, can be seen in there as well.

Working on a shoestring budget when he opened the Tornado Club in 1996, Henry Doane put pen to paper himself and tried to fashion a tornado that looked like the letter T. It ended up morphing into a T-bone steak, which, lucky for him, just happened to be on his menu. Pass the A-1!

Those seventies logos

If there was any doubt that Madison reached a creative crescendo during the 1970s, you only need to, like, relate to the logos of that era. Looking as if they fell out of an underground comic book, each design hints at a freer, wilder world, where all tastes were welcome. Some of these businesses still thrive today under a different logo. The Dotty Dumpling's Dowry logo is the same as it was back when the business was a head shop, er, boutique.

Cinema of intrigue

Are they camera lenses? Projector drive wheels? Toilet paper rolls? When Planet Propaganda was tasked with creating the Wisconsin Film Fest logo in 2001, they eschewed the typical movie reels and sprocketed filmstrips to invent a mark that is "evocative, but not anything specific," explains former festival director Mary Carbine. Leaving the logo to interpretation can only encourage different critiques of its meaning and its place in our decadent society. Discuss.

Handle with care

Human service providers offer probably the biggest challenge to the logo designer. How does one illustrate compassion without falling back on the same old hearts and flowers? Amorphous human figures in dramatic arrangement are also an all-too-common approach. Originally conceived by social worker Karen Stocker in 1979, the art featured in the HospiceCare Inc. logo transcends the usual clichés by evoking the simplest metaphor for losing a loved one. The circle suggests that life goes on, and the tree still grows.

Gone national

Even though the logos of both these local behemoths were created out of state, they are two of the most enduring brand marks in all of corporate America. A long business name like American Family Insurance could pose a problem for any designer, but the Twin Cities' Naegle Outdoor Advertising converted those words into an all-American split-level ranch house that resonates stability with its horizontal format. AmFam unveiled this logo on a mammoth sign at its national headquarters in 1962.

Designed by a Chicago label designer, the Oscar Mayer "rhomboid" was first launched in 1948 with the color yellow recalling the meatpacker's practice of wrapping their wieners with a "yellow band of quality." Although this bright and fun logo adorns products from bacon to bologna, its shape still suggests their popular "Kartridg-Pak" of wieners.

Diamond jubilee

Yes, it's true: In the year 2001, the city's minor league baseball franchise was in danger of being named the Madison Moo. Fortunately Steve Schmidt, owner of the Shoe Box in Black Earth, stepped up to the plate and bought the team, contingent on his ability to change the name to the Madison Mallards.

Despite being told that a team can't have three colors, Schmidt liked the red, green and yellow color combo of the Minnesota Wild hockey team and got Steve Spengler of Signature Graphics to use that palette to come up with a family-friendly team mascot, Maynard G. Mallard. Maybe Maynard wouldn't have to put the eye black under his eyes if he'd just turn his hat around!

Beer drafts

After the initial explosion of micro-brews in the 1980s, beer label design has entered its postmodern era. Not content to trot out the old Germanic blackletter fonts, these new brews' logos look more like rock posters than beer labels. With regard to Ale Asylum's label look, designer Otto Dilba insists, "It must pass the tattoo test. If it's not something that someone would be inclined to put on their body, it can't be a logo."

Furthermore Beer's designer Erin Fuller gives the traditional grain icon a nostalgic yet hip feel, with a coy brush script that recalls a thousand supper clubs.

Vegetarian options

Reputedly living on onion sandwiches, Onion newspaper co-founder Chris Johnson scratched out the original article-ending dingbat with a ballpoint pen in 1988. A year later it was smoothed over to reflect the paper's know-it-all corporate attitude.

Designer Carolyn Benoit hid a cresting wave inside the Rutabaga logo as the only hint of its paddle-sports business. Why a rutabaga? The name was inspired over 25 years ago by the Frank Zappa song "Call Any Vegetable." Makes perfect sense.

It's not often a restaurant will effect a punk aesthetic, but Pizza Brutta tapped Planet Propaganda in 2007 to design this in-your-face tomato to rouse Madison's pizza-eating public.

Culture club

Wearing your ethnic identity on your sleeve can be a dicey proposition. Exotic typography can usually do the job, with odd fonts promising a journey to faraway lands, but type choices have become more selective -- the clichéd Chinese carryout lettering will no longer do.

Imagery can feature the usual foreign landmark, or even flirt with stereotypes by employing a comical ethnic mascot. In Madison, these tend to be European.

Angelo Fraboni and his cousin John came up with this mustachioed shopkeeper in an apron back in the early 1970s, when Angelo was a mustachioed shopkeeper in an apron.

Hats off