Official city logos suck. Either they're boring or hideous or suggestive of all the wrong things, and rarely do they capture the spirit of the place. So designers are taking matters into their own hands. Through the open-source initiative CitID, people can create city logos, then post them online at www.citid.net. The project has drawn ideas from every corner of the earth, from New York and Berlin to Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur. Here, we’ve selected some of the best -- and yes, some of the worst -- to show how cities see themselves.

The Aar river defines both Bern, Switzerland, and this clever logo from Thomas Hirter.

Not clever: A giant flying mouse looming over Kuala Lumpur. This, people, is how you kill tourism overnight. C’mon now. By Chow Hon Lam

Kazumasa Morizumi's Tokyo to the world: “F*** you,” “heavy metal,” “I have an itch.” Obviously, a very confused place

Franka Futterlieb of urbn mixes up the letters here, too, but to a completely different effect. Berlin has been the capital of Prussia, the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, and the Third Reich. It spent nearly a third of the 20th century divided. Now, it manages to be both spectacularly cosmopolitan, with arts and politics in spades, and a throwback to the days of ‘roids and outlawed rock ‘n’ roll. We agree: One typeface couldn’t possibly contain it.

Another excellent logo for a German city, by André Nossek of Via Grafik

Here, Kevin Vo & Haline Ly of Symple distill Jørn Utzon’s opera house -- the marquee landmark in Sydney -- down to its sunset-glowy essence. It’s pleasant enough, but is that all Sydney’s about? Sun and pretty buildings? Actually, yeah. And it’s a lot better than the other crap they’re pushing nowadays.

We have no idea what’s going on here. Whose New York looks like crinkled-up gold tin foil, Donald Trump’s? This says New York like walking says L.A. No, no, no. By Ryan Harc

That’s more like it. By Thomas Suh Lauder + Benjamin Leonard Welsh for Mapping L.A.

Salvador, Brazil, is nicknamed the capital of happiness. In Mai Saraiva's image, it looks more like the capital of sad. This can’t possibly represent the city unless, of course, the city is a 1970s rec room.

Hawt. We love you, too, Atlanta. By Hannah Whelchel

Hey, this seems clever! Am-star-dam. Get it? Get it? But wait a sec. That’s not how you spell Amsterdam.

[Update: “Ster” means “star” in Dutch. Eh, still lame. That’s making people do way too much work for a logo.] By Me Studio

Much clearer

This one, for Moscow, is kinda cool looking right? The vaguely menacing design also feels right, given that Moscow is currently the world capital of robber-baron capitalism and a place where being a journalist can get you shot and killed on the street. By Konstantin Antonov / TAKECARE

Ahh. A sweet one, emphasizing Dublin's Gothic architecture. By Damian O'Donohue/Site.