New logos developed – but rejected by City of Sarasota commissioners.
Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: Jan. 8, 2024
Host: The City of Sarasota commissioners and staffers spent a good chunk of 2024 – and upwards of $25,000 – trying to figure out a new logo. But the city manager who set this in motion retired last fall, and one sitting commissioner was voted out in November. Now, at a commission meeting on Monday, the effort ended in a non-decision: Unanimously, the five
The old and new logo
commissioners voted to keep the existing logo, featuring a golden silhouette of naked David.
Johannes Werner: After coming up with dozens of logo proposals and pitching them to commissioners last April, city staffer Ciera Coleman was put in charge of organizing a survey among residents about the top five logos. She turned the survey into a sort of test run for ranked-choice voting. The 484 respondents, ranking the five from most to least attractive, ended up putting option 2 – featuring a silhouette of David – on top, slightly ahead of the others. In the middle of the process, Coleman was promoted to become the city’s public arts coordinator. But more importantly, a storm season of historic proportions caused massive flooding – including the home of one of the commissioners – and that prompted a reshuffling of priorities.
Jen Ahearn-Koch – the flooded commissioner who also happens to be a marketing person – set the tone by expressing concern about doing away with a logo and brand of many years that prominently featured naked David. That’s the likeness of the Michelangelo statue whose copy adorns the Ringling Museum of Art patio. But her
The most popular proposed logo.
biggest concern was about spending upwards of $1 million when many are still piecing together their flooded lives. Ahearn-Koch ended her argument with a statement suggesting she expects more storms and flooding: “We know what’s ahead of us”.
Commissioner Kyle Battie expressed his feelings this way:
Kyle Battie: I’m fine with the logo as is, to be honest. I don’t see the need, the public outcry, to change it. You know, again, most people, to be honest with you, don’t even know. In fact, I’d say that well over more than half the population don’t even know this is even going on. So the people don’t care. I don’t see the absolute need for it. And, as the commission pointed out, and the vice mayor, the cost of it, especially in light of all that’s happened in recent months and the catastrophe that hit the city, logos are the last thing on people’s mind.
JW: With no appetite for a new logo by any of the five commissioners, Kathy Kelley Ohlrich – the recently elected one – moved to keep the current logo, seconded by Ahearn-Koch. The motion passed unanimously. After pushing that boulder back downhill, everybody had nice words for staffer Coleman and her sisyphic work.
Person 1: I just would be remiss not to say ‘thank you so much’ for what Ciera did.
Mayor Liz Alpert: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I think, you did do an amazing job, Ciera. It was not, was not… it was not easy. So it’s not …
Kyle Battie: It’s not you. It’s us.
Ciera Coleman: I know Sarasota even better than I did before.
JW: Disclosure: Ciera Coleman is the spouse of WSLR’s general manager.
Johannes Werner, reporting for WSLR News.
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