March 29, 2024

Sketched out

City logo draws a lot of pubilc reaction, council postpones final approval

Weak. Doesn’t stand out. Generic. Sterile. Looks like a Q-tip, pop tab or Ouija board.

These were some of the public’s reactions to the proposed city of Osceola logo during a public hearing at an Aug. 19 Osceola City Council meeting.

Discussion on the logo lasted for approximately an hour and the room was packed with people.

First, there were concerns about if the GPS locator design on the proposed logo was already trademarked because once the logo goes through final approval by the city council, it would become city property.

Many in the crowd wanted to know if there were any other options.

The council discussed there have been several public meetings and a committee was formed to help design the logo. This has taken place throughout the past year.

Ty Wheeler, city administrator/clerk, said this was actually the second attempt at creating a logo. The project first began with the update of the city’s website.

“This isn’t the only variation. … One of our goals in this project, which we don’t have as an organization right now, is to develop a consistent logo for the city property — the departments,” Wheeler said. “What this does is not only allow, you could consider this the formal, the main logo, but then you can branch out of that depending on what kind of space you’re working with and the theme is consistent. It’s not various renditions of Warrior Osceola. It’s not feathers. It’s not other items. It’s a consistent theme, which we can then use when we’re marketing the city.”

The logo will eventually be found on city vehicles, business cards, signage, letterheads, shirts and more.

The new logo is actually two different versions that are essentially the same design. There’s a large version of the logo, as well as a smaller one.

Allowed to use

Wheeler said the city is allowed to use the design of the GPS locater.

During group discussion, it was mentioned the look of a GPS locater is a royalty-free icon. It can’t be trademarked or copy written — anybody can use it. The logo as whole can be copy written, but the little GPS locator can’t be. Any changes made to the icon during the design made the icon its own graphic.

Many people in the crowd wanted a design to show how friendly of a community Osceola is.

“How do we show friendly because that’s something that comes up?” asked Councilman Dennis Page.

Sarah Truitt said the logo the committee had other designs for the logo project, including depicting what the renovated downtown Osceola square would look like.

She said there were three awesome choices that also included the feather and the train depot, but nobody liked those choices a year ago.

“I am so thrilled just to have people here and input — wonderful comments,” Truitt said. “… It’s been so much work I think that we’re stuck, but I think that we all seem to be moving in the direction of ‘We like Osceola. We really like living here.’ And, so maybe we need to look at some of those we had before.”

Brad Hansen, who served on the committee, said they chose something that was simplistic, but could be added to if need be.

“In discussion, one of the most important parts of this community was its location,” Hansen said. “Osceola has so many attributes that it really couldn’t be inclusive for all of those things without becoming cluttered. We chose something that was really pretty simple.”

There were also concerns that, the more intricate a design, the more expensive it would be to put it onto city property.

Different departments, same logo

On a projector screen, Wheeler showed how the proposed logo design could be used for different city departments with the GPS locator, by incorporating a First Aid cross for emergency personnel such as police officers or firefighters.

“The first time I saw it, it didn’t really grab me,” Page said. “Since I’ve been dealing with it now for a couple of weeks, the more I look at it, the more I like it. The thing that I do like about it, again, the various things that we come up with that are going to be on the city vehicles and things like that. Again, we’re using that logo, that GPS logo, and inside that we’re putting various things.”

Councilman David Walkup recommended taking the comments from the meeting, having the committee work with the logo and bring it back to the council. He would put his support behind it at that time.

Councilman Dr. Fotiadis agreed the logo has to start with simplicity. However, the councilman, like a lot of people in the crowd, weren’t in favor of the wording on the big logo.

“If you make it too complex, too busy, it’s not going to be ‘wow,’ it’s going to be ‘eww,’” he said. “… What I like about the idea is it starts simple and with the direction finder, I like the idea of adding into the direction finder. That you can do it from department to department. You can do it for emphasis on aspects of the community.”

The council decided to send the meeting’s input back to the committee for review. After that, it would go back to the council for final approval.