What defines a town? Its residents have scores of opinions and ideas about defining the character of their hometowns and what outsiders should know.
Town symbols connect residents to a commonality that both shows their pride and identifies traits residents find important enough to promote to the rest of the world. Most cities and towns in continental Europe have a heraldic coat of arms, with many designs untouched since the Renaissance or the late Middle Ages. Japanese cities identify themselves with flags depicting stylized kanji characters, variations on clan mons or representations of city landmarks. Cities like Chicago and New York City hoist flags revealing their history and tying together their diverse communities.
The Town of Camp Verde and the city of Cottonwood are currently redesigning their logos. Both of the current symbols have served their communities well, but are growing outdated.
Logos are critical to marketing, which is an essential part of attracting new residents as well as new businesses. As a graphical representation and the most visible representation of a town or city, a logo anchors the “brand” — whatever residents want that brand to be.
Camp Verde’s logo has long been an iconic symbol of the town, but clearly reveals aesthetic sensibilities now decades old. The new town logo should reflect the importance of Fort Verde to the town’s history, the preeminence of the Verde River and a nod to the ranching and cowboy culture that many residents practice.
Cottonwood recently redesigned its outdated logo. Of the two finalists, the rejected logo was colorful, hip and dynamic, but maybe not so appropriate for a city logo. The winning choice was flat, static and hard to decipher, and relied too much on a single industry, wine, which although important for Cottonwood’s future, is not the be-all, end-all of the local economy. Justifiably, residents and the City Council recently rejected it and will head back to the drawing board.
Cottonwood now has the chance to redesign a logo that shows the influence of the wine industry, but also the eponymous cottonwood tree, the Verde River, Old Town Cottonwood, nearby Mingus Mountain, Tuzigoot National Monument or the former mining industry that drew the first residents to Jerome, Clarkdale and Cottonwood.
The options are there for residents to decide what they want to highlight and present to locals and the world as a single-glance summation and definition.
