San Francisco Is Struggling -- Do We Need a Tougher Logo?

It'd be hard to fix San Francisco's myriad problems. How 'bout we just spiff up this old flag?

Look, these are not heady days for the city. Perturbed San Franciscans are following our gallivanting mayor around the state to heckle him -- because it's the only time locals can get close enough to ask a question. The only good news coming out of City Hall these days are pacts in which unions agree to layoffs and give-backs (the equivalent of celebrating the discovery of a trove of ornate Chippendale furniture -- that you can burn for heat). Foreign governments are sending their own investigators to solve San Francisco crimes -- and, speaking of crime, the only thing our crime cameras have busted of late are people vandalizing crime cameras.

Our elected officials seem to be getting especially under each others' skin these days. If it weren't for the inherently somnambulistic effect of government meetings, you'd expect a Taiwan-style brawl to break out any day now.

What's San Francisco to do? Well, in the sports world, when you're hoping to erase the memories of yet another miserable season but stuck with a roster full of crap players -- and, therefore, unable to actually substantially improve the skill level of the team -- there's a surefire option: Change your uniforms and make your mascot angrier.

The most recent example came from Detroit -- a city so hard-up it was actually offered business advice by the mayor of San Francisco. The NFL's Lions, who managed to lose all 16 of their games last year, yesterday unveiled a newer, more ferocious-looking logo. San Francisco has had the same city flag with the same UPS-brown phoenix (yes, that's a phoenix) for 109 years. Is it time to toughen him up? Can we work in some teal?

Maybe we need a more ferocious-looking phoenix; this old one resembles  a mixture of a condor and Big Bird. How about we combine a terrifying, oversize bird-like creature with the city's green ethos (as demonstrated -- in teal! -- on this excellent t-shirt over at Amorphia Apparel):

Or, for a more conventional look, how about something like this:


Or, if we really want to roll the dice, how about this Phoenix on the flag?



Give it some thought, city fathers. If we can't make this city better, we can at least rebrand so that we no longer resemble our dysfunctional selves of recent years.