West Central Tribune Explainer: The evolution of Willmar's new brand and logo

Feb. 27—WILLMAR

— Even as city councilors and staff applauded the recent reveal of Willmar's newly rebranded look, constituents raised the issue of transparency and lack of community input into the decision.

City councilors referred to private meetings where they learned the process undertaken by Replace, the contracted design firm, and the rebranding committee to create the new brand and logo for the city. The private meetings, possible violations of the state's Open Meeting Law, did not allow for any community feedback or even provide the public with the knowledge that the rebranding work was underway.

When the "City of Willmar, Minnesota" Facebook page profile picture was updated to the new logo of a "W" formed by railroad tracks with a heart, the post received more than 160 comments about the new logo and how it originated.

Piecing together bits of information from multiple sources, including comments by

Willmar City Council

members during its most recent meeting on Feb. 20, the Feb. 21 public presentation by

Replace

founder Jeff Johnson, and a presentation later on Feb. 21 by Willmar Planning and Development Director Christopher Corbett, this is how the design was narrowed down.

Explaining the purpose of branding for a community, Corbett said, "It is an investment in our future growth. It is an effort to achieve a competitive advantage amongst other cities and neighboring towns that will allow the city to attract investment such as jobs and other funding and strengthen our local identity."

"I would add too, I think a driving force behind this rebrand, Willmar is pretty — kind of uniquely positioned right now with our expansions coming in the industrial park," said City Planner Chris Frank. "We are growing pretty well compared to other cities in the state, and so this is just kind of giving that uniformed look like we have it together and are ready to bring in some big business and a lot of development."

Corbett's presentation to the

Planning Commission

during its meeting last week was the most comprehensive presentation given publicly about how the new brand and logo were designed. He used slides from the style guide to explain to commissioners the evolution of the brand and design.

This information can be found on pages 172 through 487 of the City Council meeting packet for Feb. 5,

when the new branding was approved in a 5-2 vote.

The style guide is an 86-page document showing how the brand, logo, color palette and font should be used by the city.

"People hear we got a new logo and they just see the one logo, but we got a whole style guide," said Councilor Vicki Davis during the last council meeting. She sat on the rebranding committee with Councilor Julie Asmus, City Administrator Leslie Valiant and City Operations Director Kyle Box.

"So, all of the communications that we see from the city should be consistent," said Planning Commissioner Chris Buzzeo after Corbett's presentation to that body. "That is a tall task I don't think gets enough credit. ... The consistency of a brand is really difficult. I do like it."

Over the course of the rebranding process, Replace familiarized itself with the city, its resources, architecture and history. It met with the committee several times and created several different design options which were narrowed down and tweaked by the committee. There were also more than 50 stakeholders that the designs were shared with to offer an opinion.

Firm founder Johnson, who grew up on a hog farm in the lakeless, flat lands of North Dakota in a small town without pavement, was already somewhat familiar with the city. He visited as a child and young adult while his sister lived and worked here for 30 years, and called Willmar his "Paris" for all it offered as compared to North Dakota.

One of the things that stood out during his presentation last week was that the railroad yard made a significant impression on him during his visits.

"When my kids were little and we would come to Willmar for Christmas, the number one place that we had to go to was the switch yards," Johnson said. "They didn't know about the city of Willmar, they just knew this as the railroad switch yards. So for sure we were going to do an awesome illustration of the switch yards."

Corbett showed the Planning Commission the various logos that have been used by different departments throughout the city, which did not depict a cohesive identity. He also showed the various photos that Replace took and the graphic drawings created from them.

Showing a photo of the "Willmar" sign on the side of the BNSF Railway building, located across U.S. Highway 12 from the Kandiyohi County Office Building, Corbett said, "That is something that we drive by every single day, but it is distinctive and it is actually the inspiration for the font that was created just for the city of Willmar."

During his presentation, Johnson explained that "the more that we looked at that typography, we realized that we think that the solution might already be here. It's just been kind of just ignored for being so obvious. But there was something about the integrity of that typography that we really liked."

Corbett explained that in round two, all the information Replace had gathered was put together to get a better feel for how the font and brand would look. Seven different iterations of a new brand and logo were created, which the rebranding committee narrowed down to three favorites. That information was also sent out to the stakeholders for input.

Showing the final version of the new logo, he stated that Willmar exists because of the railroad "and that's going to be evident in our new brand."

Asmus explained during the Feb. 20 council meeting that focusing on one thing that really represented the community was a difficult task because of all the assets Willmar has to offer.

"Going to other communities, if they had a lake, that was a big thing that they could identify their communities with. We had so many — I call them assets — that we had to choose from," she said.

Some of the ideas that came up included the lakes and the concept of Willmar being "where the lakes meet the prairie," coffee due to Willmar's historic Kaffe Fest, buffalo fish due to the significance of buffalo fish and the fictional Chief Kandiyohi to the area, and the railroad and industry.

Kandiyohi is a Dakota word that means "where the buffalo fish come." Willmar has a statue on the southwest corner of Becker Avenue and Fifth Street Southwest of the fictional Chief Kandiyohi carrying buffalo fish.

Asmus noted that for a while, it seemed like the buffalo fish was one of the favored ideas, "but then some people felt that that would be having to explain too much about the buffalo fish and its meaning to Willmar."

Another city has formed its brand identity around coffee, so that option was tossed out. "Where the lakes meet the prairie" was contemplated, but that is a larger area than just Willmar, Asmus explained.

"So then that kind of guided it more towards a 'W' for Willmar and the trains, because that is a huge part of our community," she said, noting the growth of the industrial park. " ... It was just the more industrial look. Then the heart came in as far as being welcoming, everybody is welcome to Willmar, so it wasn't too edgy with the railroad tracks."

City Administrator Leslie Valiant added that the heart is also because Willmar is the heart of Kandiyohi County.

There are options within the style guide to use the buffalo fish or a coffee pot as part of the logo for certain events or communications.

Explaining the colors used, Johnson said at his presentation, "Certainly there is a history of red in the city. Our job, as we decided it, we wanted the identity to be a civic expression in order to look like a city. ... The style guide that we put together is more of a blue and green palette, because we thought that was more of a city expression."

The new Willmar tagline, "Minnesota's Crossroads," reflects the fact that Willmar is the intersection of agriculture and industry, railway lines, major state and federal highways and old and new immigrants.

Following the presentation by Replace, West Central Tribune asked some city officials for their thoughts on the new brand and logo. Mayor Doug Reese and Councilor Carl Shuldes offered their opinions during Tuesday's council meeting.

* Mayor Reese: We spent time on it and it looks very nice. ... That's our beginning, that's what brought Willmar to be, was the railroad. ... I like some of the thoughts that went into it. The individual department logos, the bridge, the railroad tracks. I do like it, myself.

* Councilor Shuldes: Change is hard. People were comfortable with the "W." They like the red "W." This is going to grow on people, I think.

* Fire Chief Frank Hanson: I like it. I think it's something that's new and innovative. It's always good to have a little bit of change.

* Recreation Coordinator Anita Nelson: I don't mind it. My biggest concern is the aquatic center — are we going to change the logo of the aquatic center? Because I feel like the parks and rec tree doesn't necessarily go with the pool. Otherwise, I think, I grew up here, and so I think I understand their concept behind it.

* Police Chief Jim Felt: Definitely, it's a change from the norm. What I like best about it is that each department has kind of got their own identity. That's one thing that they worked around it. Ours will have a shield in the center and that type of thing. Any change can be a little bit scary, but you know, I think some things just take some getting used to and we're going to start incorporating it in our business cards and letterhead and even a little bit into our squad cars right away. ... It's not going to be a big change to start with, anyway. ... Our plan is ... to incorporate (the new font) on the side of the squad car.

* Willmar Main Street Coordinator Riley Kennedy: I like it. I love it. I think it's very cute. I like the color schemes of everything. And I really like the circles (of different logos for the departments), because now there's individualized representation for each department.