By Stephen Dafoe
Morinville – Residents have an opportunity to return to the polls over the next week, but this time it’s not to select a mayor and council. The Town of Morinville is seeking public input to help them decide which of two logo designs will be the one Morinville uses to identify itself both inside and outside the community.
Morinville Chief Administrative Officer Edie Doepker said approximately 13 logos were designed by Focus Design Group, the consulting firm that has been working on Morinville’s branding since August. The selections were narrowed down to two finalists through consultations with the Community Advisory Committee, Town staff and council members as well as from information gathered at public charettes.
“Through a process of meeting with the Citizen Advisory Committee and with a staff advisory group and council, we’ve narrowed the options down to two, believing that both are really reflective of what we heard from the community and from all of those involved in the process,” Doepker said. “Now we’re at a point of making a decision between one or the other of those two logo designs.”
Both finalists seek to capture the essence of architectural elements found in St. Jean Baptiste Church, long an iconic image of the community.
One logo uses stylized interlocking Ms, inspired by the architecture and stained glass of the church. The interlocked shapes are meant to convey the collaboration in the community. The interlocked letters also roughly take the form of a maple leaf.
The second logo also uses a letter M – its shape inspired by the historic church’s stained glass windows as well as the wrought-iron fence surrounding the heritage properties in the downtown core. As in the former design, the overlapping shapes are intended to represent community collaboration. Below the M is a stylized leaf intended to represent the community’s trail system and green spaces.
Both designs are modern – something Doepker said conveys Morinville’s growth and forward movement. “I think that modernity reflects the growth of the Town, the greater sophistication of the Town, the evolution of the Town as it becomes larger and a really important player in the Capital Region,” Doepker said. “So it’s important for us to have that unique brand and to have something that differentiates us from others.”
Doepker explained the logo, once selected, will make a prominent appearance as Morinville’s identifying brand.
“Once we have our visual identity, our logo, our trademark – so to speak – we’ll be using that in all of our marketing and communication material,” the CAO said, adding the logo will appear on community brochures, stationary, business cards and in branding Morinville for economic development purposes. “The Community Cultural Centre will be using this mark but will have its own tagline to go with it.”
The design and selection of Morinville’s new logo is part of a $50,000 to $60,000 rebranding package that will include all the templates for brochures, reports, business cards as well as an overall communication strategy and marketing plan for promoting the Town of Morinville. “The branding, communications and marketing strategy – those three pieces all fold up into one,” Doepker said, noting the Town went through a competitive process to select a consulting firm for the project.
Currently Morinville has no logo and has been using the coat of arms in place of one. Doepker said Morinville will not be abandoning its coat of arms. Rather, the Town crest will be used for more formal settings, namely the official business of mayor and council.
“We don’t really have a logo, so this is brand new for Morinville,” Doepker said. “It’s something that we want everyone, in time, throughout the region to recognize as Morinville. When they see it, they’ll know it’s Morinville.”
People interested in voting for one of the two logos have until Nov. 11 to do so. The selection survey takes less than two minutes and can be accessed online at www.morinville.ca.
Wow
That looks more like Morinville is moving forward, great job!
Yes, I agree that both logos look nice and yes it is time for Morinville to move forward. My only question is what was the cost of the contractor “Focus Design Group” and is their cost included in the $50,000 to $60,000 costs mentioned above? I believe that we are in a time where the constant tax increases and static incomes, people will not look favorably on high costs being spent on “it would be nice” programs rather than what we have to do here in town to stay alive.
Linda
Seriously? Morinville’s paying $50,000 – $60,000 for someone to stack a some M’s on top of each other? Why don’t we make our new town logo a 100 dollar bill with wings, to represent all the money we’re throwing away…
Responding to both comemnts above and taken from our article:
“The design and selection of Morinville’s new logo is part of a $50,000 to $60,000 rebranding package that will include all the templates for brochures, reports, business cards as well as an overall communication strategy and marketing plan for promoting the Town of Morinville.
Seriously? The second logo would be great for Movember Month- the campaign to raise funds and awareness for prostate cancer- with the M and the moustache underneath.
Neither of the logos portray anything to do architecturally with the church. This is a very poor view of the WHOLE town.
How about tieing in the yellow for the surrounding fields or the sunshine, the blue for the blue skies, a tree for the open space and parks.
While I am quite glad to see Morinville moving forward and those logos are nice looking I don’t particularly feel they are a great representation of Morinville. But hey, what do I know? LOL. Glad to see effort put into making our town look better on paper.