The brand: Phoenix rising from ashes or more?

"I don't like to say I have given my life to art. I prefer to say art has given me my life."

Frank Stella

A logo is a graphic representation of a brand. Logo designs are intended to evoke a brand’s promise: the benefits and experiences consumers expect from the service or product. So, what does the logo of Phoenix say about who we are?

Since Phoenix logo is a mythical bird rising from the ashes, what should the world expect from our city? Interpreted positively, we could argue that the phoenix promises resurrection, new life. But what does that say about where we are going? Viewed through the lens of history, the phoenix represents a city prey to cycles of boom and bust – we keep rising from the ashes. We offer cheap land, affordable housing and a business-friendly environment, but we are also highly susceptible to economic downturns, which reduce us to figurative ash over and over again. Do we want to be a town whose best promise is that it will get up after inevitably and repeatedly crumbling to the ground?

Setting aside graphic design, the most compelling question our city faces is a business issue. If we were a business we would be trying to define our brand and then crafting a brand promise. But from an economic development perspective I don’t think we have a unified brand or brand promise that can be used to create the public policies that will guide our development into a fully mature metro area. We can build a strong brand, but what do we want it to be? Are we a commodity or a community?

An emerging development theory argues that in advanced economies, growth stems less from the acquisition of capital and more from innovation and new ideas. This idea has been part of the discussion in Phoenix but little is done in a comprehensive way to define a vision leveraging Arizona’s potential to become a center for innovation and new ideas.

The kind of workforce needed in an economy focused on innovation and new ideas is a workforce that demands a dynamic and culturally diverse place that values art and culture, promotes social responsibility and enables social interaction in interesting spaces. Phoenix is a young, growing metro area, but what strikes me about the city is its lack of support for arts and culture, and how hard it is to create distinctive, interesting places.