No Rest for the Tasteless

Bad Design to Replace Historic “Colorful Colorado” Signs

By Jenny Shank, 12-22-05

For as long as I can remember, I have been making the long drive across Colorado's eastern plains to visit relatives in eastern Nebraska, and my heart always lifts on the return trip when I finally see the "Welcome to Colorful Colorado" sign marking the Nebraska/Colorado border. The signs, introduced in 1950, are rustic and woodsy. The simple white lettering recalls the sans-serif font that might be produced in a summer camp wood burning project, and the brown painted wood of the sign, cut to be ragged on the edges, suggests campsites, hiking trails, and outdoor activities. The signs are mounted on two posts that are made of a conglomerate of rocks, and the overall effect evokes mountain lodges, cabins, and the beloved Western bears Yogi and Smokey. In short, it's an elegant, simple way to welcome visitors by evoking how Colorado differs from the surrounding plains states.

The brilliance of these signs has endured the span of the last half century. Their design was "modern" in 1950, and yet it perfectly fits in with the post-modern era that began in the 1980's because of its almost self-conscious wink at the way Americans of the 1950's enjoyed nature, and its reference to the signs used during the expansion of the National Parks system during that era. But now the tasteless people at Colorado's Office of Economic Development and International Trade are planning to take these signs away, and replace them with banal welcome signs that look like they were designed by an accountant with two word processing fonts at his disposal.

Couldn't they at least hire a kid who'd taken an art class or two to design the new signs? Or better yet, maintain those 1950's classic signs that are one of the most enduring and evocative graphic representations of our state? Roger Fillion wrote about the impending doom of the beloved signs in today's Rocky Mountain News ("Sign of times: State has eye on brand-new look"), and he interviewed the man behind this debacle, Brian Vogt, who directs the Economic Development office. Vogt clearly doesn't get art: "'They're brown and white and say 'Welcome to Colorful Colorado.' But there's nothing colorful about them,' he joked." That's exactly the point—when you enter the state, behind the simple sign rises the majestic Rocky Mountains in every shade from blue to purple to gray. The sign isn't what's colorful—it's our land that's colorful—and these signs match those in campgrounds and National Parks that are designed to be unobtrusive in the midst of nature, signs that display their messages quietly, with a hush that is reverent toward all the beauty around it.

Does Vogt want day-glo neon signs marking every hiking trail in the state? What he apparently does want is a red-white-and-blue design engraved on stone—that's right, colored engraving—in an indistinctive serif font that says "Welcome to Colorado," and evokes absolutely nothing but a generic sense of being somewhere in America, somewhere that likely has a Wal-Mart. Maybe we should just throw up a Wal-Mart on each of Colorado's borders and rechristen our state Wal-Mart-Landia. A Google image search reveals just how many people have posed with the classic signs over the years. It's doubtful that the new signs will move anyone to stop for a photo.

The bad taste of the Office of Economic Development is not limited to its assault on these classic signs, however. Under its "Advancing Colorado" campaign, it's offering various clothing items for sale that evince a red-white-and-blue gaudiness that is alas, one degree short of kitsch.

All hope is not lost though: according to the Rocky, Governor Owens and the Colorado Department of Transportation must approve the new sign idea, so if you love those classic "Welcome to Colorful Colorado" signs, shoot them an email (governorowens@state.co.us), and join the fight for good design.

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