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City council approves a new logo for Redondo
by Mark McDermott
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The city’s new logo, approved by the council Tuesday night. Image courtesy of Hunt Design Associates. |
The city of Redondo Beach now has its own logo. It is a sleek, modern image depicting a pier, a sail, and a sunset, and by the first of next year it will begin appearing on city letterhead, business cards, T-shirts, and web sites.
"This is the way it is done in corporate America," said City Manager Lou Garcia. "We should be one city, and we should be clear on our image."
The process of looking for a logo began nearly a year ago, when Garcia addressed the mayor and council on the subject of the city’s visual identity. Garcia said the city lacked a "coherent, unified identity," and an advisory group was established to work on development of a citywide Visual Identity and Wayfinding Signage Program. The group, led by Assistant City Manager Sue Armstrong, was comprised of 11 employees from the city manager’s office and the planning and public works departments.
"These were 11 strong-willed and not bashful people," said Armstrong.
City council member Kevin Sullivan jokingly called the advisory group "the good taste committee." Garcia excused himself from the exercise of any aesthetic judgement, noting that he had about 400 neckties, and "maybe 300 are red with blue stripes, while 70 or 80 are blue with red stripes."
Last June, the council accepted the committee’s recommendation and hired Hunt Design Associates, a firm from Pasadena that has developed logos and sign programs for such clients as the MGM Grand Casino, Universal Studios, and downtown Los Angeles. The firm was awarded a $75,000 contract and given the task of helping the city develop a visual identity. The consultants worked with the committee and met with various long-time Redondo Beach residents and city historians to try to get a sense of how the city should be represented. The idea was to solicit ideas and images unique to Redondo Beach.
"We went through a consensus process so we could be satisfied with what we came up with," said Armstrong, who also noted that as word got out, city employees began dropping by her office with ideas. "It’s funny how everybody has an opinion about this kind of thing," she added.
Finally, Hunt Design came up with 40 images, and the "good taste committee" began the paring-down process. When they were down to three images, they sought outside opinions from the Visitor’s Bureau Marketing Committee and the Recreation and Parks Commission. Everybody agreed on one image, and this was the one presented to the council.
It was an unusual council meeting, featuring discussions of colors, fonts, timelessness, and aesthetic deference. Mayor Greg Hill said he thought he spoke for the council when he said that they were probably not the most artistically inclined group in the world. "I have to defer to the expertise of someone who has been doing this with corporations and other cities," said Hill.
The expertise on hand was Wayne Hunt, the principal and owner of Hunt Design Associates. He gave a presentation on the process his firm went through in designing the logo, and answered council members’ questions. He explained that marketing studies give an image a "half-second rule," meaning the logo has that much time to make its impression on the average viewer.
Council member Kurt Schmalz asked what went behind the decision to make the fonts lower case, and Hunt explained that it conveys a youthful, fresh image. "I like the informality of the word redondo, and the formality of the word beach," said Hunt.
Mayor pro tem John Parsons asked if the logo would become dated with time.
"I think it has legs and could work a long time," replied Hunt.
Schmalz was the only council member to express reservations about the logo. "It isn’t a case of love at first sight," he said. "It doesn’t work for me." He said he had put the logo on his refrigerator at home, hoping it would grow on him, but ultimately it just wouldn’t have been his choice. "Hopefully, it’s something I’ll get a little more accustomed to," he said.
Parsons wondered if there wasn’t perhaps some way to open up the process so there could be more citizen input on the decision, but Garcia suggested that would be inviting endless delay. "We’d get 63,000 different views on a logo," he said. "We should bite the bullet and do it very quickly."
Council member Gerard Bisignano agreed, and made a motion to accept the logo. "I don’t want to micromanage art," he said. The motion was seconded, and passed unanimously. The city will now construct a design manual to outline how the logo can be used, and work will continue to develop a comprehensive signage system. A total of $197,210 has been appropriated for the project thus far, and the cost estimate for citywide sign replacement is $400,000, according to the city manager’s office.
"I’ve had feedback from people who visit," said Mayor Hill. "They often don’t know where Redondo Beach begins and where it ends." ER