Revealed: The story behind Minneapolis' sailboat logo

The recent update of Minneapolis' sailboat logo to include more curves, brighter colors and fewer boats raised some other pressing questions. Most notably: "Why a sailboat?"

"It has nothing to do with certain parts of town," Council Member Kevin Reich said during a recent committee meeting, relaying concerns he hears from constituents. "As a matter of fact, it's not even a very central feature of what we are as a city. We're not Newport, Rhode Island."

The 1970s-era boat now emblazoned on trash cans, highway pillars, city vehicles and letterhead is, of course, a take on the "City of Lakes" motto. But its origin story has proved elusive even to city staff, who could say only that it first appeared on official stationery nearly five decades ago.

The Star Tribune tracked down that story.

Former Council Member Denny Schulstad was working in the city's two-person public affairs office in the early 1970s, a job that largely involved dealing with the media, writing news releases and crafting a weekly employee newsletter. The city's stationery at the time featured the city seal at the top and the skyline at the bottom.

But the Foshay Tower was about to get a 300-foot taller sibling.

"The IDS tower was getting built," Schulstad recalled. "So Fred [Kobler] and I looked at that and we said, 'Well we're going to have to add the IDS tower to [the stationery].' And when we looked at that, it was ridiculous."

This prompted some bigger thinking about redesigning the stationery and conveying the existing City of Lakes brand in a new, more versatile logo that could also be affixed to business cards, Schulstad said. They considered using the outline of a lake, but realized that Minneapolis' lakes don't have easily recognizable shapes.

"Then we thought, 'Our lakes are restricted, it's only for canoes and sailboats. You can't use a powerboat on a Minneapolis lake,' " he recalled. "So we thought about a canoe. That just didn't look very good. So then we thought, 'Well how about a sailboat?"

So the two men, neither of whom had a design background, went to work with a compass, some black paper and an X-ACTO knife. Neither thought they were creating anything more than an icon for stationery and business cards.

"This was not something where we went out to an advertising agency and paid $50,000 to get the design," Schulstad said. "This was two people in the communications department … It was just strictly an in-house thing."

"The fact that it has been used so often — my gosh it's even on the big pillars now that welcome people to Minneapolis nearly 50 years later," Schulstad said. "I look at those and I say 'Wow, whoever would have guessed?' "

City Clerk Casey Carl, whose office keeps extensive records about the city stationery, said the City Council formally adopted the skyline and sailboat stationery in 1984. Efforts later that year to change the logo were rebuffed by the council.

A year later, the council approved two allowable versions of the city letterhead — both with the sailboat, but one without the skyline. Eventually the skyline faded away from city letterhead altogether, and the sailboat multiplied.

"It was a phasing thing," Schulstad said. "And I think probably what Fred and I were told was, 'Hey, let's design something new.' "

Some have recently questioned whether sailboats are the best representation of the city, given how few people use them. For his part, Schulstad said he has never sailed on the Chain of Lakes.

"Sailboats, whether one or two, tell only part of Minneapolis' story," wrote designer Julia Curran on her blog Happify Design, referring to the elimination of one boat in more recent designs. "They're a luxury hobby, with limited access for those in Minneapolis … Less than one tenth of one percent of Minneapolitans could have a sailboat in our city."

Rethinking the logo wasn't part of the recent modernization project. But responding to Reich's concerns during a recent committee discussion, communications director Matt Laible said brands should be consistent.

"We think there's real value from a branding perspective in maintaining an identifiable look," Laible said. "A logo really is a visual signature that people recognize."

Eric Roper • 612-673-1732