The departing members of the Bainbridge Island City Council got a standing ovation at this week’s council meeting.

And the reception for the latest versions of a new logo for the city? Well, not so great.

Like much of Bainbridge, council members’ preferences for a new emblem for the island were split between the two options. And then some.

“I don’t like any of these,” said Councilman Ron Peltier.

“I find it very disconcerting that we are discarding our old, 25-year-old city logo,” he said.

The options looked like “clip art from the Internet,” Peltier added.

The pair of possible logos were first presented to council members at their meeting on Dec. 8, and the council postponed picking one that night to replace the city’s longstanding logo (which features a ferry with forests and mountains in the background) that now adorns everything from city stationary to business cards and beyond.

Instead, the council asked staff to get community feedback on the latest batch of possible logos.

One design features a capital “B,” for Bainbridge, with an outline of the island inside the letter.

The other design depicts two squares; one with a capital “B,” and in the other an outline of the island.

The council eventually decided on the big “B” design, after Councilman Wayne Roth’s suggestion to adopt the two-square approach found no backers.

Councilwoman Sarah Blossom agreed with Peltier and said she also liked the city’s current logo.

“If these are my choices, I would choose B,” Blossom added.

In the end, she didn’t, however.

Approval for the B logo followed on a 4-2 vote: Blossom and Peltier against; Councilman Kol Medina, Councilmen Roger Townsend, Mike Scott and Val Tollefson for; Roth abstaining.

Medina, however, called the preferred logo “fresh.”

“I’m happy to vote for it,” Medina said.

Reaction to the logos from the community before this week’s meeting was also mixed.

The big B logo received more positive reactions, according to email comments compiled by the city and shared with the council.

“It is a really nice logo that will remain appealing for a long time,” one person said of the big B logo. “The other logo makes me think of social media buttons and I worry that it will be outdated in a short period of time.”

“As far as the corporate logo goes, the two-square concept is unattractive,” added another. “The single ‘B’ with an island shaped hole is tolerable.”

One more vote: “I like the lone capital B with the island shape as the I inside. The other one with the blocks looks too childish, like toy blocks.”

Several who offered input on the new logos said the city should take a step back.

The new choices, said one islander, were “boring but not offensively tacky. I’ve lived here since 1975. What was wrong with the retro font ‘Bainbridge Island, WA?’ Simple. Why fix what wasn’t broken?”

“I have to say I like our city’s current logo more than either of these because it actually says something about us,” added another.

“I don’t see the need to switch the city logo, or the costs associated,” another commenter offered. “Many cities keep their logos forever and [they] become a part of history. Being such a young city I don’t see the need for changing it. [I] hope the committee looks at the cost vs. benefits of this requirement to change and shares that with staff.”

Bainbridge had earlier hired an outside consultant, Arnett Muldrow & Associates of Greenville, South Carolina, for $22,545 to help “brand” Bainbridge Island with a new marketing logo for Bainbridge.

The logo effort included other materials to market Bainbridge Island in a coordinated fashion, but the unveiling of the consultant’s marketing logo in June was met with widespread criticism.

City officials soon said that first draft logo — a shield topped with a row of three medieval-style battle axes floating above wavy blue lines — would be dropped, and the city later terminated the contract with its cross-country consultants after subsequent logo designs also failed to find fans at city hall.

The newest designs were created by Bainbridge graphic designer Kelly Hume.

City spokeswoman Kellie Stickney said the cost to transfer over to the new logo would be minimal to the city as it will be phased as part of the normal process of replacing and upgrading items.

“For example, as employees need new business cards, we will order cards with the new logo. For other items such as stationary, we do not currently keep stationary on hand,” she said.