ThisWeek CW 05/09/2013
Plans to replace gateway and historic district directional signs around Canal Winchester are moving forward, including the possible adoption of a new city logo.
At Canal Winchester City Council’s April 29 meeting, Development Director Lucas Haire said the city held an online contest on the LogoMyWay.com website as an easy and efficient way to obtain a large pool of professionally designed submissions.
“We’ve been working around this issue as a part of the sign replacement over the last six months,” he said. “As an administration, we felt there was a need for a new logo, since ours is about 35 to 40 years old and we have several variations of it around town — at least three different versions on the signs currently up.
“The biggest problem is we don’t have the original design files for the current logos,” he said. “Trying to copy the details off the aging signs is difficult and we wanted a look that’s a little more clean and crisp.”
According to Haire, LogoMyWay.com allows users to establish a prize amount for the winning entry, with the idea that the number of entries is affected by the size of the reward. Canal Winchester offered a prize of $500 and received about 40 designs.
The chosen entry was created by Tony Vernon of Prism Design Group in Indianapolis. It incorporates the Canal Winchester name in a font meant to work well with the standalone “CW” emblem used around town. The new logo also includes the city’s founding date and representations of three structures that emphasize the historic importance Canal Winchester.
“When we posted the contest to LogoMyWay, we emphasized three things we wanted reflected: that we’re a growing community, we are concerned with historic preservation and the idea of being America’s hometown,” Haire said. “Destination: Canal Winchester also went with the idea of America’s hometown, and we feel this is a good image of life here in Canal Winchester.”
The structures illustrated are Town Hall, the covered bridge and the train depot. Councilwoman Marilyn Rush-Ekelberry asked if it would be a problem to incorporate the train depot image since it isn’t actually owned by the city.
“I want to get the blessing from the trustees from the historical society saying it is OK to use that building just so we don’t have a problem down the road,” Rush-Ekelberry said.
Law Director Gene Hollins agreed, saying he didn’t think it would be a problem to get that from the historic society.
According to Haire, the proposed concept will still undergo some further tweaks, in particular, deciding on an appropriate color scheme.
He said adopting the logo won’t require further legislation. Once the design is final, the city can start replacing signs, probably starting with the sign on Gender Road.