How do you symbolize a newspaper? It used to be something old and iconic - the kind of symbol that, if emblazoned on a dusty milk-bottle or loom of some kind, might fetch a lot of money on "Antiques Road Show." It's the image that sits high up on the front page, above the headlines, mixed into the newspaper name. It's usually on top of slogans saying things like "Established in 1805," or "a century of commitment" or "locally owned since the Magna Carta."

But such is not the case today.

Many newspapers are fighting for their lives, reinventing themselves, and their logos, to stave off oblivion and exile to the Google-lag, as it were. There is lots of speculation as to why newspapers face hard times but the Internet figures prominently. Business models can suddenly look creaky when envisioned through a web browser.

Declines in subscriptions, attention-deficit disorders, the rising cost of paper, an undead Dear Abby; many are the maladies facing local print media, but fear not for your own paper of record, the Ballard News-Tribune. Community papers are seeing a modest resurgence in popularity. One theory has it that an upsurge in thinking locally, combined with the Internet's inherent anonymity, mean neighborhood papers are currently in vogue.

You could point out that there's also a theory that Elvis assassinated JFK but let's not get bogged down in negative comparisons.

Even when a newspaper isn't trying to reinvent itself, there's no reason not to fine-tune the corporate avatar - the newspaper logo. It's no trivial thing, tinkering with our symbols, when we are so wrapped up in them - as a country with our flag, constitution and eagle, and as a community, with our locks, salmon and fishing boats. It was the fishing boat that Associate Publisher T.C. Robinson wanted to consider one morning as I was darting furtively around the Burien headquarters submitting my usual pile of dubious expenses.

"We need a new logo for the Ballard News-Tribune's front page. The boat drawing is looking...fatigued. Maybe something with a little more panache?" The editor grabbed the challenge by the horns.

"I'm on it," I said, and headed back to Ballard, to ask Dean what he thought.

"Let's get a picture of a fish boat," he said after thinking about it a moment. He reasoned it was a modern picture instead of an old drawing - evolution instead of revolution. Dean is no fan of radical leaps.

But I suddenly had a thought: As the editor of the Ballard News-Tribune, am I not charged with the hugely pretentious task of coalescing the community every week into 16 pages? If there was anyone qualified to hammer out Ballard's zeitgeist, who would it be besides me? Well, Alf Knudsen and Marianne Forssblad, for starters, but there you go with those comparisons again.

I commissioned an artist to draw a new logo. I described to him my vision. A bold new image of Ballard at a crossroads. One with hi-rises and fishing boats. I also threw in a bunch of contemporary buzz phrases like Microsoft programmers, alternative transport and diversified economies. Stuff I got mostly off the Discovery Institute web site.

"I'm getting paid for this, right," the artist kept asking.

When he was done a few days later, I took the image back to Burien and pitched my idea to T.C. He had reservations.

"What the hell is this?"

I tried to explain cultural fusion ideas I'd had, nonsensical phrases, all alliterated in some sad attempt to sound hip: "coveralls and codfish, condos and curry, sustainable spandex!" but to publishers concerned with life's grubbier details (operating profits and lack thereof, most likely) it was lost on him.

"No, no," he interrupted. "I just want a picture of a fish boat."

A few days later, Dean took the photo that would be our new logo from the deck of Ray's Boathouse. The Alaskan Lady was returning from fishing in the Aleutian Islands. The vessel is considered a classic work boat design - 58 feet long and 20 years old. At one point, owner Tom Manos had the boat rebuilt. Got rid of the old components, brought in new stuff. Even the classics need to be reinvented from time to time.

"It's a hard living," Manos says about fishing. He could be talking another trade near to our hearts.

"You have to do it for the love of doing it," he says.

"That, and if you can make a living at it."

I've come to think of the Ballard News-Tribune's new logo as perfect.