CREWE town councillors have stuck with tradition in their choice of a new logo for the authority.

As part of the adoption of the Crewe Town Brand principles, the councillors were charged with settling on a new design to help freshen up the image of the council.

Faced with six designs to replace the old logo, which featured Crewe's Municipal Buildings, they have cast aside several "modern" options to recommend a design (above left) which incorporates the town's crest and points to its railway heritage.

It was one of two logos showing Crewe's crest, while two of the more modern logos were based on the Crewe Place Brand theme, representing the town "moving ahead and progressing" as well as depicting new buildings following town centre regeneration.

Cllr Tom Dunlop told the marketing and events committee: "Four of these designs are very modern, but for a town council logo we have to keep a bit of heritage."

Cllr Jamie Messent was unimpressed that one of the logos based on the town crest had a blue and yellow colour theme that reminded him of Macclesfield. Of the preferred red and black design he said: "This logo sticks out for me."

Cllr Jill Rhodes had a sense of deja vu about the blue and yellow crest logo and recalled: "It's the old Crewe and Nantwich [logo], you can see it in one of the windows of the Municipal Buildings.

"But the town council has always been associated with red and black."

The wheel in Crewe's historic coat of arms is a symbol of the rail industry with its six spokes representing the six lines radiating from Crewe Station. In all the wheel featured in four of the six logos that were designed by a Crewe-based agency and presented to councillors this week.

The current logo (above right) was a competition design for the council's launch in 2013 and will be replaced by the new design for all branding purposes and on council documents and online channels.

Siding with the heritage of the chosen design, Cllr Marilyn Houston noted: "Although we've only been going for eight years, Crewe as an area of local government has been going for over a 100 years."

The choice of the new logo will need to be ratified by a full council meeting on March 30.