Downtown Branding- Marketing Communities & Main Street Promotions

Time to Step Up.

2010-05-07T22:44:00.003-04:00

Paragould Arkansas just launched this year's First Thursdays with their signature Art & Stroll event, and they highlighted all the participating businesses by putting welcome mats out front with the event's logo on them. Great Job Paragould, the one and only.

Fired Up on the Mountain

2010-05-07T09:50:00.003-04:00

Iron Mountain Main Street is kicking butts and taking names with some niew signage and banners in their downtown. Take a look!

Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs.

2010-05-07T09:46:00.003-04:00

Congrats to Wake Forest, North Carolina for installing some great looking wayfinding signage!

City 'seasoned' for success

2010-05-07T09:41:00.004-04:00

Opelousas' new branding campaign — "perfectly seasoned" — became a reality this week with the first street banners going up at city's tourism center.

"This is just a small part of our branding development campaign," Tourism Director Melanie Lee said of the half-dozen large banners now on display at Le Vieux Village on U.S. Route 190.

"This is a way to introduce our new logo and branding promotion to the people," Lee said of the banners, which feature a stylized "O" for Opelousas, accented with an accordion, a fleu-de-lis, a spice shaker and a fiddle.

Lee said the accents were chosen to highlight the city's culture, history, food and music — all set off with the slogan "perfectly seasoned."

"They are attractive and certainly eye-catching," Lee said.

She said these first banners, paid for by the city's Main Street Committee, are designed to make it easier for tourists to identify parking around the village, which serves as the city's tourism center.

Lee has applied for a $200,000 grant from Preserve America to greatly expand the program throughout the city.

"It will hopefully get us the funds we need to provide the planning and implementation of way-finding signage to point out our cultural and historic assets throughout the city," Lee said.

The program is all part of a image campaign developed for the city by Arnett & Muldrow, a community branding company.

In a series of community meetings earlier this year, the "perfectly seasoned" tagline especially got rave reviews.

"This is exceptional. That tagline is not trendy but very progressive. It can be applied to everything from perfectly seasoned education to perfectly seasoned food," said Opelousas City Court Administrator LaVonya Malveaux, who attended those meetings.

Ben Muldrow said the slogan is designed to work on multiple levels, with perfectly seasoned standing for everything from the area's 300-year history to its blending of cultures.

"The very way you live life here is a blending," Muldrow said.

Tripp Muldrow said a major objective of any branding initiative is to build community pride around an agreed upon set of images and phrases and then use those to project that pride to potential investors, visitors and businesses.

"A city must have a unified, professional image if it wants to build local businesses and attract others," Tripp Muldrow said.

To help spread the logo and slogan the brothers, who were paid through a Certified Local Government Grant, have prepared a free 12-page style guide.

"It tells you how to use these elements. It also tells you what not to do," Tripp Muldrow said.

The hope is that not only the city, but other groups, festivals and merchants will join in the promotion effort.

The brothers have also incorporated the information and designs into a DVD that the city can supply to printers, festival promoters and others.

For copies of the style guide or DVD, contact the Opelousas Tourism office at 948-5227.

Congrats to the Great American Main Streets!

2010-05-07T09:36:00.002-04:00

We attended the National Main Street Conference in Oklahoma City, OK this week, and had a great time. During the conference, this year's GAMSA award winners were announced, and we are proud to have worked with 2 of the 5 winners, Congrats to Columbus, Mississippi and Fairmont West Virginia!

Creating Great Ads

2010-03-03T23:31:00.002-05:00

In my opinion, great ads often start with great photography. One of the best things I have seen lately is a service that West Virginia Main Street has offered some of its Main Street communities, where a professional photographer goes into a community and takes pictures inside the shops and restaurants. These resources are hugely important,

whether when designing ads and brochures, or updating websites. Good photos make everything else easier!

Set in Stone

2010-02-14T14:51:00.003-05:00

Reidsville, North Carolina has recently taken there new brand identity to the streets, literally. This logo has been placed into the intersection in their downtown. Great job!

Perfectly Seasoned.

2010-02-05T15:33:00.006-05:00

Tripp and I spent the week in Louisiana this week, and had a great time creating a branding system for Opelousas, Louisiana. The home of Tony Chachere and the Savoies, and the world capital of Zydeco, this town had a lot of great people and stories to share. Here is what the daily world had to say about the process!

Opelousas may soon have a sharper image and a new slogan thanks to a branding effort by the city's tourism office.

Arnett & Muldrow, a community branding company that is working with the city on its image campaign, presented its findings during a community meeting this week and most came away impressed.

While the company has suggested a number of ideas to help promote the city, its suggested slogan — perfectly seasoned — was the biggest hit.

"You have done it again. This really reflects this area," said Parish Tourism Director Celeste Gomez, who has worked with the company previously on its efforts to promote the Atchafalaya National Heritage Area, of which Opelousas is a part.

Ben Muldrow with the company said the slogan was designed to work on multiple levels, with perfectly seasoned standing for everything from the area's 300-year history to its blending of cultures.

"The very way you live life is a blending," Muldrow said.

"You are a unique community within a unique region. You need something that is not overly trendy but authentic," said his partner and brother Tripp Muldrow.

About the only concern raised at the meeting was with the various symbols — a fiddle, fleur de lis, spice shaker and the courthouse square clock — the group chose to represent the area.

The audience, pointing out the clock is a relatively new addition, instead suggested replacing it with an accordion to represent the diversity of local musical traditions. The brothers said that should not be a problem.

More than just images, the brothers also recommended the use of a seven-color palette of primarily reds, orange, browns and greens. The orange is for the city's high school team, the reds and browns for its spices and the greens to represent the still largely rural nature of the parish.

They said these colors and the recommended flowing type style can be used for everything from T-shirts and logos to directional signage.

The distinctive type style could also be used to carry the city's image forward for everything from the Spice and Music Festival to the city museum and court.

According to Tripp Muldrow, one of the major objectives of a branding initiative is to build community pride around an agreed upon set of images and phrases and then use those to project that pride to potential investors, visitors and businesses.

"A city must have a unified, professional image if it wants to build local businesses and attract others," he said.

Therefore, the brothers said the colors, type and designs should be available to the public at no charge and could easily be incorporated by other local festivals and groups, from the Yambilee to local merchants.

"You want a consistent image for Opelousas. Many different images are currently being used depending on the group. You want something that belongs to you, something that says Opelousas," Tripp Muldrow said.

They also offered a number of suggestions for other changes, such as to the city's Web site, which they recommended splitting in half.

Pressing one button would direct visitors to local attractions, while pressing the other would direct residents to news and information.

"Visitors don't really care about local water rates," Ben Muldrow said.

They also recommended ways the images and type could be used on billboards and directional signage.

The brothers said they don't normally recommend billboards, but as the community is at the junction of two major highways, in this area it makes sense.

The brothers, who are being paid through a Certified Local Government Grant administered through the Louisiana Division of Historic Preservation Office, will now prepare a 12-page style guide for the city incorporating the ideas.

"It will tell you how to use these elements. It will also tell you what not to do," Tripp Muldrow said.

They will also incorporate the information and designs into a DVD that the city can supply to printers, festival promoters and others who want to use them.

Tourism Director Melanie Lee, who helped arrange numerous meetings for the brothers with the public and interest groups, said it was a great experience.

"We had a really intense, but productive week," Lee said. "We heard so many wonderful ideas from the citizens of Opelousas."

Lee said the city is applying for another grant to help implement the various ideas.

"It will hopefully get us the funds we need to provide the planning and implementation of way-finding signage to point out some of our historic assets," Lee said.

It starts with TR!

2010-02-04T15:26:00.002-05:00

After a beautiful streetscape was completed in downtown Travelers Rest, South Carolina it was great to see some of our designs begin to take shape. They have put up the banners that we designed, and the logo even appears on the dedication plaque for the project. Traction, it starts with TR!

Laurel, Mississippi- Getting the word out

2010-02-04T15:17:00.004-05:00

It is always great to celebrate successes with our communities. Laurel, Mississippi has successfully launched their new organization identity, and have new shirts for memebers!!

Here what they have to say about it:

"Making It Happen" T-shirts for sale

$15 | $12 for members

A limited number of Main Street t-shirts are available for purchase at the Laurel Main Street office, 409 Oak Street, suite 204. Shown here on Bill Holloway, Main Street board member and owner of Holloway Home Designs.

The back reads "I am making it happen."

Join the movement of downtown revitalization and wear yours today!

To reserve your size, email!

GREAT JOB JACKIE and all the folks in Laurel making it happen!

How Our Communities Introduce their Brand System

2009-04-08T00:19:00.004-04:00

Downtown Branded

One of the recommendations that came out of last year's Downtown Market Assessment and Marketing Plan for Hendersonville, done by Arnett Muldrow & Associates, was to brand Downtown Hendersonville with a new logo that "represents the uniqueness of Hendersonville's downtown and portrays it in a classic yet fresh way."

The green color is reflective of our WNC environment, while the cross of the "H" is a nod to Main Street's serpentine path, and the leaves reflect downtown Hendersonville's location - surrounded by tree-covered land and mountains.

The tagline, "RealGenuine", refers to downtown as a place where you'll find both the (real - "occurring or existing in actuality") and (genuine - "actually produced by or proceeding from the alleged source").

For instance; Hendersonville has real apple orchards and it's a place where you'll findgenuine homemade apple pies. An alternate tagline, "The Mountains' Real Downtown" is also sometimes used with the logo.

Downtown Hendersonville Incorporated got busy immediately, offering merchants"matching funds grants" of up to $500 for using the new logo. Some have taken them up on the offer - have you seen the Pink Corsets billboard on Hwy 64 just east of downtown?

See this Money for the Taking article for grant details.

After the basic logo design was developed, extensions followed for use during various festivals, events and seasons. See a few examples below:

You'll be seeing this logo more often and when you do, you'll know it's identifying a business or event downtown.

Merchants wishing to use these logos in their advertising should contact Lee Henderson-Hill, Executive Director DHI, by calling (828) 697-2022 or emailinginfo@DowntownHendersonville.org A free CD containing a style guide - templates for ad layouts, digital copies of the logo, color specs and printing instructions is available for merchants, also.

Submitted by: Blog Hendersonville

What is a jpeg?

2009-03-26T22:32:00.005-04:00

I get a lot of questions about the different file formats, so I figure I can go through them one at a time. I guess to start the discussion, we should really go from the basics. There are two types of art files, vector files and bitmap or raster files. Illustrator and Corel are the most popular vector art programs. Vector art is mathematical, it is geometric definitions of the designs, which allows those file to be infinitely scalable. Bitmap, or raster images are grids, and each square in the grid is defined by a color. You can easily turn any vector file into a raster file, but going back is a lot more difficult. That being said, no organization should be stuck with a jpg alone, but jpgs are great files. They can be used on the web, inserting into word files, or even into powerpoint documents. Now sometimes, you may try to insert a jpg into a word document, lets say, and you will only see a black box, or a box with a red "X". This normally means that the jpg is in the wrong color format, CMYK instead of RGB, but those are later posts. The jpegs are set restrict by the size of those blocks, known as dots per inch or DPI. The number of dots, or color blocks, per inch determine how crisp the image is. If there are only 72 dots per inch, as is the standard on the Internet, can not be used in professional printing, which has a standard of 300 dots per inch. What does that mean, please don't pull a logo off of a website and try to print it in a brochure.

BRAND STUDY: From the Land of Beer and Cheese

2009-03-21T09:56:00.007-04:00

Wisconsin, this week, unveiled a new tourism logo and tagline. The logo is being received in the typical way that a logo is received when the news reports on the project cost and shows the image. This branding project cost the state $50,000. Now, I can't be sure, but I feel pretty confident saying that the state got a lot more product than just the logo. Here is what my friends over at Brand New had to say about the logo: "The most common complaint is its cost, at $50,000 of tax payers’ money. The basic response is “$50,000 for that?” No, people, it’s not. $50,000 covers more than just coming up with a slogan, a typeface and an icon. But that has always been the problem of reporting costs when announcing a logo, people just assume the designers pocketed all the money. I can’t verify that the designers — in this case, Wisconsin-based Red Brown Klé — didn’t pocket all the money but I am pretty positive this was not a $50,000-fee identity job.

The other main complaint was the slogan, “Live like you mean it,” which has been used by other products, campaigns and, as has been quoted in articles, even by motivational speakers and authors. Gasp, the horror: “motivational speakers and authors” have used a common phrase before Wisconsin! What a travesty. Again, people criticizing this logo need to get a grip, the problem with the tag line isn’t that it has been used before but simply that it’s generic without any specificity to Wisconsin. But so is “I Love New York”, you can love any darn state, so why does “I Love New York” only work for New York? It’s about building that message in people’s heads and if Wisconsin wants to embed the thought of living life as if you meant it, so be it, give it a chance."Now, I am a big believer in engaging the public while creating these brand identity systems. I am Guessing that this is not really the case with this process, and seems to be the exception instead of the rule in the Tourism world, but I also believe that the greatest compliment to a brand is a parody, and within 48 hours of the brand launch, these t-shirts were available. I LOVE WISCONSIN!

BRAND STUDY: Jack in the Box

2009-03-15T20:50:00.004-04:00

From time to time, we will discuss things done in the corporate world. Jack in the Box has recently changed their logo, and are in the process of changing cups, wrappers, bags, and even redesigning over 2000 stores. Their ad campaigns have been focused on Jack, from his corporate jet, to his hospital bed. It seems to make sense that they move in the direction of a more personal connection with their public symbol. It was strategically designed to be a medallion, yet also be the edge of a box, and the name Jack is offset to the left so the tail of the "k" could reinforce Jack's signature smile. I am a fan, good job, Jack! What do you guys think?

Facebook Advertising is a Good Option for Local Downtowns

2009-03-15T18:08:00.004-04:00

Facebook was talked about quite a bit at the 2009 National Main Street Conference in Chicago, Illinois. One thing that my brother Chris and I spoke about was the validity of Facebook advertising because of the cost effectiveness and the ease of targeting local customers. Even if you don't have money budgeted to advertise, you should explore the facebook audience in your area. Here is how to do it:

1. Go to Facebook

2. Click Advertising at the bottom.

3. Click the Green Button that says Create an Ad

4. On the next screen, you can type in anything, but it is a good exercise to think about what you would say with such limited characters.

5. Click continue and demographics will be added.

6. As you change demographics, the target audience size changes.

This is a great way to check out and see how good a tool facebook can be for your organization.

Using Fonts and Color to Connect

2009-03-13T09:59:00.008-04:00

Many times, we as communities spend so much time thinking about the picture in our logo, that we forget the power of both font selection and a uniform color palette. To illustrate this, we are going to hop over to West Memphis, Arkansas. West Memphis is part of the Arkansas Delta, and in 2006 we were there and helped their Rural Heritage Development Initiative (RHDI) create a marketing identity.

We created a system there with a rich color palette of earth and river tones with an emphasis on blue because of the connection to the Blues. We also introduced a second font, Thuphap (now known as Weidower ), for the tagline- Soil & Soul.

This identity covers a 15 county region, but West Memphis is truly their front door, and serves as the gateway to the delta from tennessee travelers. When we were in West Memphis in

October of 2008, we knew that the goals that they had and the built environment there were ripe for a system that was more contemporary and progressive. I had been amazed by how much good, hard work had gone into Downtown West Memphis in the 2 years since I had been there. In fact, it looked like a different place. The ice plant was still there, but now

so was a beautiful streetscape. One of the biggest things that we had to deal with was the fact that their Main Street was not Main Street, but Broadway. We created a logo system that could work for both Main Street as an organization and Broadway as the destination. And our graphic inspiration was the Rhythm created by the banners that line this very wide Boulevard. We also introduced a tagline in WM- Wide Open, connecting the physical street with the attitude of the Main Street, volunteers, and City Planning staff. Keep your eyes open and expect great things!

Needless to say, we were thrilled when we were asked in Feb 2009 to Create an identity for a local concert series that would bridge the WM brand and the Ark Delta brand. The series is made up of four different events, so we attempted to create an umbrella identity and identities for each of the four events. Between the color palettes and the font choices, along with strategic design cues, we are really excited about the system that ties two brands together!

Powerpoint is Software, Not a Projector

2009-03-06T11:03:00.003-05:00

This will probably be my first of many posts about Powerpoint. And this is my opinion. Powerpoint is a program designed to create and display presentations. Not create stationary. Not layout newsletters. It is a presentation software. And it is pretty good at that. That being said, powerpoint is an important tool for Main Street Programs. You should have a standardized powerpoint template for your organization to use. This template can be used by your Economic Restructuring Committee to pitch new businesses, or by Organization to present to potential donors, and we are always in favor of the Main Street Organization presenting periodic updates to City Council.

Who wants to learn how to make a customized powerpoint show?

There are really three different ways to make this happen.

1. Insert Background Image

2. Create Master page

3. Create Template File

Branding to the Experience Economy

2009-03-06T09:17:00.002-05:00

We had an opportunity this week to speak at the 2009 National Main Streets Conference in Chicago. One of the sessions that we did was Branding to the Experience Economy. We felt like this was an important message to help local Main Street Programs to be as effective as possible. We have posted our powerpoint online here. Check it out!

Mississippi Main Street Freshens up their Image

2009-03-05T18:00:00.008-05:00

The Mississippi Main Street program is one of the best coordinating programs in the country, and I have had several opportunities to work with their communities to help them develop community branding campaigns. When I realized that I would have a little time at home after the baby came, I asked Bob Wilson if I could take a stab at freshening up the identity system for the program. The previous logo was well implemented, and appeared on the signs which announced arrival to all the Main Street Communities, but it did not create a system that made it easier to teach the four point approach, nor position the organization as a creative, and progressive economic development entity. The Association's recent move into a new office building marked to perfect time to freshen things up, as their printed materials were going to have to be updated anyway.So we created this progressive new logo, made up of a defined color palette, contemporary san serif font, and icon, comprised of four images, representing the Main Street Four Point Approach®. We also introduced a new program tagline: four points for progress. We felt like these fours words summed up the efforts of this statewide support network network. We created different versions of the logo, depending on where they would be used, for example, on a national level, Mississippi is larger, helping to make it stick out from other state coordinating programs. On the local level, we even created a simple version of the four blocks and MMSA, allowing local communities to roll the identity into their own marketing materials. One of the best parts about this system is its ability to promote the tenets of Main Street Revitalization approach with the four committee structure. We even created sub logos to help MMSA when training program managers and volunteers on those four points. Over the coming months, you will see this logo system begin to be incorporated in their website, stationary, and program materials, and we look forward to seeing the benefits that it has for the organization. For more information about the Mississippi Main Street program, go to http://www.msmainstreet.com

Getting Your Local Businesses on Google Maps

2009-03-05T16:01:00.007-05:00

One of the questions I get asked the most is in reference to how to get our local businesses listed on Google Maps. Luckily, Google makes this process about as easy as most things on google.

Here are the Steps:

Step 1: go to http://www.google.com/local/add

Step 2: Click on Add new business

Step 3: On the next page, you will input address, contact info, website, description, and even be able to fix incorrect marker location

Step 4: After Confirming the marker location, the next page will allow you to categorize your business, and specify hours, which is hugely helpful for shops and restaurants. Here, you can also add photos, and even a video of the shop owner talking about their place of business.

Step 5: Confirm the information. You can confirm the information by phone or postcards, and is all automated.

Step 6: Bask in your googleness!

I have put together a step by step video to make it easier!