Keeping up with the Jones’ is one thing, but how about a city keeping up with itself?
Since its incorporation over 50 years ago Southlake has had a reputation as a sleepy rural hideaway nestled between Dallas and Ft.Worth. However, over the last decade our fair city has been in the midst of tremendous transformation into a bustling, family-friendly suburb and a destination for many looking to spend more than just their free time.
During Southlake’s 50th anniversary, city officials felt it was time to formally update the city’s logo to better reflect its new image. According to Southlake Mayor, Andy Wambsganss, “our prior logo served us well for decades; it was time for something timeless, strong, simple and representative of Southlake today.” City council and the community dedicated many months in capturing the simple elegance of Southlake’s past, present and future.
The city recently unveiled its newly updated logo during the highly attended Holiday Celebration in Town Square. Long-standing Southlake resident and designer of the city’s original logo back in 1984, Dr. Greg Gist says, “any company or municipality should be careful when changing a brand that has accompanied them in their rise to prominence. This logo is a significant change in the image of our city.” Rhetorically he asks, “Maybe its time?”
In order to take care in the creation of Southlake’s new logo, many phases were completed before the final rendering of the crested “S” was finalized. After painstakingly choosing Dallas-based, Torch Creative as the official agency in March 2007, hours of community research was put into action. Torch began touring the city and taking pictures to better get the “feel” of what Southlake is and looks like. Additionally, city council called for the creation of an online survey where residents could pass along their personal recommendations on the best words, phrases and visual features to be included into the logo. From there initial sketches were reviewed until the strongest three concepts where professionally treated. A final vote called for the strongest logo to rise to the top.
Even though it is updated, the logo still maintains similar representations of natural beauty found within Gist’s original version. Water is the central feature to both the past and present logos. The former had two doves flying over what was LakeGrapevine at sunset while the later includes curving waves within a stylized “S” as its main water element. The winding lines of the “S” each terminate in a leaf-like silhouette directly correlating to the meticulously sculpted vegetation found throughout the city.
According to Mike Thurman of Dallas based Torch Creative, “While touring Southlake we became very aware of the city’s exacting attention to detail and numerous natural features. We wanted the elements of the logo to be classic in nature.” Along with the oversight of the city council it was determined the best way to encompass these natural features were with “organic flowing lines”.
Continually ranked amongst the best suburbs to live in all of North Dallas, many families relocate from across the state and the country to enjoy Southlake’s excellent school system and family friendly culture. For many the five-pointed, crested border gives the logo an “old-world” feel as it accentuates the city’s well known prominence as a family oriented suburb.
Mayor Wambsganss knows that change is good and that complete incorporation of the city’s logo is part of a long term vision. He hopes that, “in 5, 10 or 20 years the logo will say “Southlake” just as much as our name does today.”
“Change is inevitable” says Gist, “yet change and growth done with excellence is a blessing.” In fact, what has made Southlake the envy of so many is the quality of the people that work so hard to build excellence into the community every day. A logo is only a graphical representation of the pride we all associate with our home.
It goes to speak, even the most popular logos go through an update now and again to keep up with the times. In fact, Nike and Apple, two of the biggest brands in the world (#29 and #33 respectively according to Business Week’s 2007 Top 100 Global Brands) no longer utilize their original logos created in the 1970’s. The first revision of Nike’s “Swoosh” took place a mere 7 years after it was created in 1971 and the famous “rainbow colored” Apple was replaced after 22 years of service (1976-1998).
Ultimately, Gist and the city should be happy to know that with 23 years of service, the original logo had more staying power than some of the world’s top brands! Now with Southlake’s new logo we have a fresh face which will represent our city to visitors and citizens for many years to come.
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