Wednesday, April 8, 2009

How Our Communities Introduce their Brand System

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 emailing
info@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

2 comments:

  1. As a resident of Indian Trail, NC, I am VERY excited about the community branding that Arnett Muldrow has recently developed for our town. They took the time to truly gain an understanding of the people and character, and the roots and vision, of our community. They could not have done a more perfect job in conveying who we are as a community. The revelation of our new branding was thrilling, energizing, and truly inspiring! With so many logo variations provided to us, our town has been provided with a tremendous amount of flexibility, allowing us to creatively infuse our new branding and identity into everything we do. I am writing this from the perspective of an involved resident who wants great things for our town...and this is EXACTLY what we needed! I was compelled to share with others the excitement that Arnett Muldrow has brought to our town.

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  2. I'm flattered that you are using my article on the wonderful work you did for Hendersonville, NC, but would like to ask that you ad a credit such as: Submitted by: Blog Hendersonville and a link to the original article: http://bloghendersonville.blogspot.com/2009/03/downtown-branded.html
    Thanks!

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