‘Shush,’ I told my inner critic. Enough said in the aftermath of a front page Turkey Explosion-False Visualization combo earlier this week in our hometown newspaper. I vowed to zip it regarding an ongoing irritation that offends my eyes and riles my editor’s soul every time I see it.

But I just encountered the hideous police-report logo again, in the June 29th issue, as I prepared my recycling bundle. It is used liberally, as if it is something special associated with the Gazette brand.

For the love of the newspaper gods, in the name of all that is sacred and holy – and possible – in modern graphic design, please kill this logo. Wipe it from your system and from our collective memory.

If you do not know why it’s so offensive to the eyes of so many you’ll just have to take my word for it. I’m sorry. I have compassion for all who produce a daily paper. It’s far from easy. But there’s no room for primitive, ugly, orange logos above the masthead of our Paper of Record. Such atrocities were deemed unfit for publication back in the mid-80s, when the Gazette was emerging from the B&W days and we started using garish splotches of color anywhere because we could. Lurid cut-and-paste clip art sure as heck doesn’t fly now.

There is no need for a “breaking news” banner, sports cutout or index above the Gazette masthead, anyway. Readers are able to find their way around a 14-page paper without USA Today-style navigation aids.

If there is extra space on the front page fill it with stories or large photos, the latter of which I was busted for on a regular basis. We all fall prey to stylistic peccadilloes. Mine happened to be four-column horizontal or three-column vertical giant pictures of cute kids. I liked those better than head-and-shoulders shots of talking “chairpersons” standing at podiums.

Nobody’s perfect.