When Denver Mayor Mike Johnston announced the Vibrant Denver Bond proposal in February, his team passed out stickers with a logo for the campaign that included colorful trees, a city skyline and a mountain range.
A month later, when Johhston and other city officials started holding community meetings about the bond package, many of them wore shirts with a logo, but mysteriously enough, the logo had changed. The colorful palette and the basic elements remained: trees, skyscrapers and mountains. But if you look closer, you’ll spot differences.
The original has two circles in the sky. Its buildings are covered in unusual markings. There are some indistinguishable blobs among the trees. The city’s finance department confirmed its team used design program Canva’s generative AI art features to create the first logo. “After producing some materials with that early logo, we recognized some issues with the design,” said department spokesperson Joshua Rosenblum.
The second logo was created by a city graphic designer and looks a lot cleaner. Gone are the twin suns and squiggly lines. Instead, there is a neoclassical architecture of the City and County of Denver building and the Wells Fargo cash register building.
Mayor Johnston has promoted artificial intelligence, hosting the inaugural DenAI Summit, which was marketed as “the first major city-led convening of the AI community focused on how to use artificial intelligence for good.”
