Flint Comix Branding: The Anatomy of a Logo

By Randy Zimmerman

From the beginning of our Flint Comix venture we knew our name and logo was vitally important to our success as a publication.

I was originally going to call the publication "Flint City Comix" but once I had teamed up with Theo he pointed out that the word "City" was way too limiting considering the area that we wanted to be distributed in (All of Genesee County - BUT "Genesee County Comix" wasn't going to make it either!). 

I had also worked up a logo for FCC based around a major Flint landmark, The Block (a large block of cement, rumored to be left over from the I-69 construction, at the intersection of Hammerberg  and 12th Street that everyone paints on from time to time (see picture), but quickly decided that it was too plain and needed to go.

So we became "Flint Comix And Entertainment" and began to work a logo off of that.

Flint Michigan is known for MANY things, just look it up.  Some of those things are not very favorable, and as a friendly positive paper we did not (and still don't) want to encourage those elements in out logo.  What I settled on were three iconic landmarks that have unique recognition in the area.

I arched the word "FLINT" to symbolize the arches that are lined down Saginaw St (our "Main" street).  These arches date back to the early 1900's and were taken down for a trolley line that, after a few decades, was removed (primarily backed by GM to encourage folks to buy their own transportation).  Our downtown "organizers" decided that they needed to be restored to mark the uniqueness of the city, so after a number of fundraisers and gripes, they went back up.  Personally, I thought the whole thing was silly, but after they were up I've gotten to really like those little arches and how they make our downtown area a little more unified as well as unique.

 

Inside the word "COMIX" I replaced the "I" for two squares and a circle to symbolize our Citizen's Bank Weather-ball that now sits on top of the First Merit Bank building downtown.  First Merit recently acquired out local Citizen's Bank franchise and have plans to change the weather-ball over to their company's "F M" (which coincidentally are Flint Michigan's initials), but it is one of the most iconic landmarks in the area.

Behind the words "Flint Comix" I added what is probably THE iconic symbol of the area, and that is an arrowhead.  Formed on the banks of the Flint River, the area was originally a main dwelling area for our local Native Americans and was named (obviously) for the primary stone they used for their arrowheads.  They use an arrowhead on the Flint City seal, as well as in the recognized logos for bother the police and fire departments.  Using an arrowhead graphic to unify the logo was an obvious choice.

Though the logo has had slight type variations over the last four+ years, we've kept the same logo since the creation of our prototype and it has served us really well as a brand for our endeavor(s).

Next from me (FINALLY, I promise!): THE FIGHT FOR #1.

Flint Comix #51: STATUS REPORT

 By Randy Zimmerman

As of this posting Flint Comix #51 (July 2013) is now out on the stands.  Despite the Fourth of July Holiday (On a Thursday, which literally shot the back half of the week for many folks, but not our printers), we had copies distributed as early as Saturday.  The majority of them were distributed on Monday (the 8th).  It all came out well and we are moving onward.

It was an odd month in that a lot of things we had planned did not unfold as planed. It was one of those issues where there were a lot of hats in he air.  One or two we shot down ourselves: one article that closely mimicked another local publication's article, and after the last few weeks of behind the scenes "glitches" (We call them "koalas" for reasons we'll explain later.) we aired on the side of omission.  A couple we postponed to next month, and a few ...well...let's just say it's better left not talking about and leave it at that.

I have blown what I thought was a strained muscle in my knee (that I delivered my share of FC #51 on) to a full blow out, making it impossible to walk.  I don't get sick much and I make a lousy patient, so I'm typing this post in an attempt to be doing SOMETHING for the paper.

As I mentioned in the editorial, sometimes you just have ROUGH months, where it seems the whole world is fighting your efforts, and I'm hoping our current "rough patch" ends as soon as my knee heals (It IS feeling better and I am able to hobble short distances - going to the doctor's tomorrow.).

Returns on #50 have been normal, despite the one thousand issue overprinting.  No one decided to give our press release(s) any coverage, so the paper still remains a "local" event.  To say that I'm frustrated over this lack of attention is an understatement.  To say that I was surprised by it would be a lie.

I'm starting to believe that the only way folks will take us seriously will be when we start another comics paper in another location (which IS something we've tried to do these last 3-4 years, but have always run into "koalas" that I promise to get into in later posts), but for now we'll keep on punching away here quietly, or at least somewhat quietly.

Next month (Issue #52) is our annual "Back To the Bricks Cruise" issue, (I'll cover that in a little bit when I work our history up to issue #4).  I am currently working on painting the cover which, now that I think about it, I should be taking shots for it to show you its progress here.  More postings SOON.  I ALMOST have the history of our first issue post-able, so that will probably be next.

Thanks for being here.

Randy Z.