Responding to the clear preference of its students, staff and faculty members, Cal State San Marcos will keep a logo the university has used for several years but incorporate a new, "edgier" font for CSUSM's name.

The decision ends a four-month quest to come up with a new logo in time for the start of the campus' 20th anniversary celebration in January.

The university's call for entries attracted hundreds of design proposals. Last week, university officials narrowed the list to two very spare but sleek versions that differed from each other only slightly.

Comprised of a few blue lines set against a white background, the two finalists depicted the corner of the campus' Kellogg Library.

CSUSM officials asked the entire campus to choose the final version. Students, faculty and staff members who didn't like either design could choose to vote instead for just the new font.

The survey originally was set to run through Wednesday, but university spokeswoman Margaret Lutz said the outcome had become obvious.

The trend was clear: 30.4 percent of the 1,338 respondents preferred one of the new options, 27.1 percent favored the other new version, and 42.5 percent voted for the font only.

Lutz said campus officials also learned from respondents' feedback that many people had a strong attachment to the existing logo.

That design depicts domed campus buildings and a rolling hillside that appears to float above the buildings.

"What we saw really early on was that people really like the existing logo and also preferred the logo font that we had proposed," she said. "So it made sense to go ahead and make that decision early."

The search for a new logo was conducted online, with the university paying Internet company crowdSPRING $250 to host a Web site for the project.

Anyone could submit a design to the site; visitors could also comment on or tweak proposals from other submitters. University officials then narrowed the contenders down to the two finalists with the help of on-campus focus groups. The designs' creators each were paid $500.

Call staff writer Andrea Moss at 760-739-6654.