Ohio got a rebrand in 2023, and it is unexpectedly great

I live in the oft-maligned state of Ohio.

And you know what? It’s kind of awesome. Well, my hometown of Cincinnati is, anyway. It’s cheap. There are some fantastic, diverse neighborhoods. We have a great arts scene. We have multiple James Beard Awards–nominated chefs turning out innovative and interesting things. We’re a couple hours flight time away from either New York City or Key West. We just legalized recreational marijuana—which dovetails nicely with Cincinnati’s wondrous BLINK event, the biggest light, art, and projection mapping festival in the country.

There’s just one problem that undermines all of it: that accursed logo. For the past decade, the state has been branded by an identity that truly puts the “Rust” in “Rust Belt.” It forfeits the positives about Ohio for its . . . less-desirable attributes—you know, the opioid crisis; the doldrums of cornfields that lie just beyond metropolitan areas; “Let’s Go Brandon” flags; truck nuts; apparently some of the worst life expectancy in the U.S. . . .

You could indeed find all of that here in this sallow, anemic, pessimistic logo that has long greeted you the moment you crossed state lines. It’s a logo that has perhaps everything wrong with it—and this past May, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine did wonders for the state and simultaneously delivered a decisive 2023 design win by throwing it in the trash.

In the postmortem: How did this mark emerge in the first place?!

Per Cleveland.com, which hosts The Plain Dealer, the logo debuted in 2015, the result of a $2 million state contract awarded to a marketing firm and an ad agency. The goal: Bring in more tourists to the state, which they sought to do, per the brand guidelines, with “a distinctive, hand-crafted, iconic visual cue that emotionally engages.”

As a reminder, that’s this: Ultimately, it was largely a typeface problem. The scratchy, somewhat spooky, emaciated Handy (which, the official guidelines note, you could buy for $6) isn’t necessarily a bad typeface—it’s just the wrong one. If the goal was to lure more tourists to Ohio, Handy—which calls to mind, say, the lettering on Chuck Palahniuk’s disturbing novel Haunted, or the type stylings of symptoms in antidepressant commercials—was a curious choice. It’s uninviting. Uninspired. It lacks confidence, conviction. It’s a veritable graphic shrug that feels more like a question—Find it here? Those ‘O’s of the same height are jarring. It turns the state into not so much a tourist destination as a Ripley’s Believe it or Not! roadside curiosity that you carry pepper spray to, just in case.

And so Dewine made my year when he unveiled this:

As the new set of brand guidelines puts it, “Ohio is more than just a place on a map. It’s a place in people’s minds . . . Ohio is a brand.” Thank god someone realized it—because that old logo was doing Ohio dirty, affirming every ugly truth about it. 

This time around, the goal was to think beyond tourism. In addition to jettisoning the identity, TourismOhio got rid of that “find it here” tagline and resurrected the heart-shaped-state’s slogan “The Heart of it All,” previously in use from 1984–2001. 

According to a press release from DeWine’s office, “We’re looking at the classic ‘Ohio, The Heart of it All’ tagline in a new way. Our state is thriving, and we want the world to know that Ohio is the heart of technology, the heart of opportunity, the heart of adventure, and the heart of family. This is a brand for all of Ohio.”

Gone is the urine-colored state outline (which, per the old guidelines, “represents innovation and contemporary thinking”) in favor of a red, white, and blue palette informed by the Ohio flag.

The new guidelines wax poetic on the design choices, revealing layers of metaphorical meaning: “Ohio is bursting with opportunity, and this logo embodies that optimism. The word ‘Ohio’ extends beyond our borders, with its italicized modern monoline script leaning into the future. The flowing typography conveys feelings of warmth, creativity, and connectedness, while the bold san[s] serif is robust and legible. A subtle but noteworthy design element is the ‘infinity sign’ at the top of the capital ‘O,’ signifying the infinite possibilities in Ohio.”

Sure, there’s a lot of design and marketing speak in there. But sometimes you have to pile on the verbiage when you’re atoning for this:

Does the new identity break new design ground? Nope! Is it perfect? Nope! But it’s perfectly fine. And that’s the key. 

You probably won’t remember it tomorrow—but aside from New York’s identity (you can probably guess what it is) and that wild “S” orgy in Mississippi’s, most state branding leaves no trace. And more than anything: The best does no harm. The best marks leave no mark. 

Sometimes, the most effective design simply disappears.