St. Francois to Redesign its Seal Because Everybody Made Fun of It – Riverfront Times

And can you blame them? There's the jumble of images hilariously oriented to fit (mostly) within the blue border; above it, the formatting for the text of "The Great Seal of St. Francois County" appears to be trying to liftoff and escape from the rest of the seal; and just looking at the thing for more than a few seconds produces a kind of seasick nausea, because this seal is an *experience* and that experience is chaos.

And lest one presume this is just some .jpg floating around on the county website, please be advised: It's real and it's spectacular.

Three years later, St. Francois County could be getting a new seal. Gallaher, who is still Commissioner and in his 70s, addressed a St. Francois County Commission in a regular meeting this week. He acknowledged a "fever pitch on social media about the county seal" and announced that the county is looking at ways to redesign his self-admittedly slapdash work.

"It was a rush deal way back when," he said according to the Journal's account of Tuesday's meeting. "I had two days for the public to come up with a seal and my design is proof positive that I am not artistically inclined."

But while his graphic design skills may have lacked technical polish, the result captivated internet users who could only look at the seal, squint, and wonder how is this real?

On Reddit, the seal hit the site's front page over the weekend. Days later, user wtf703 was kind enough to completely redesign the seal so the eagle isn't tipping into an abyss; the redesign made the Bible/cross combo even more pronounced, because this designer is a complete pro who understands what their customer wants.

It wasn't just Reddit getting in on the fun: On Twitter, many users responded with references to the "Graphic Design Is My Passion" meme.

They're all amazing and terrible. This is our favorite:

I would like it to be better than the seal we have now," he said, "which would be a slam dunk."Follow Danny Wicentowski on Twitter at @D_Towski. E-mail the author at Danny.Wicentowski@RiverfrontTimes.com

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St. Francois to Redesign its Seal Because Everybody Made Fun of It - Riverfront Times