Brewer’s orange and black city logo will soon be a thing of the past.
Brewer city councilors on Tuesday agreed to pay Sutherland Weston, a Bangor-based marketing and design firm, up to $10,000 to design a new logo that “reflects the vibrant, modern identity Brewer wishes to project,” according to the agreement.
The city’s current logo is orange and black — a nod to the colors of Brewer’s schools — and features the outlines of four buildings in front of a sun motif.
D’arcy Main-Boyington, Brewer’s economic development director, said the current logo was likely created in the late 1990s. Despite its long tenure, Main-Boyington said the colors and images don’t “look and feel like Brewer.”
“It has definitely run its course and the city has changed so much in the last 25 to 30 years,” Main-Boyington said. “I’m not sure that it has ever represented Brewer, but it certainly doesn’t represent us today.”
Though the city believes this logo is “rooted in the city’s rich history,” it doesn’t echo updated signage for the Brewer Riverwalk, which features two shades of blue and green with a wave design. A fresh logo that better matches other local signage would also make the city more recognizable, which could boost Brewer’s ability to attract and retain businesses, the city’s agreement states.
The new logo doesn’t need to be identical to the Riverwalk signs, but Main-Boyington said she believes an allusion to the Penobscot River would be appropriate given the city’s focus on it in the last decade or so.
City leaders have discussed redesigning the logo for the past decade, but Main-Boyington said the city updating its website proved to be the perfect opportunity to finally do so because it won’t have to pay extra to place the new logo on the website.
The process of designing a new logo will likely take five to six weeks, Main-Boyington said.
Michele Daniels, chairperson of the Brewer City Council, said the logo redesign process will invite feedback from residents on what they think the logo should look like. This, she said, could encourage constituents to participate in city boards or feel more comfortable coming to city leaders with questions and concerns in the future.
The logo and website redevelopment is happening in tandem with city councilors developing a new comprehensive plan, which happens once a decade, Daniels said.
Once approved by the City Council, the new logo will be added to everything from municipal buildings and vehicles to the business cards of Brewer employees, Main-Boyington said. However, the new logo will not replace the official city seal, which depicts a ship on the Penobscot River and appears on government documents.
