City council approves new look

A new logo and more will be coming to Creston with the approval of new branding by Creston City Council Tuesday.

The Update Uptown committee has been working with Ben Muldrow of the marketing firm Arnett Muldrow to create a city brand thanks to a BOOST grant received last March.

“It’s a grant through IEDA,” Update Uptown committee member and UCDA director Mindy Stalker said. “It was a $10,000 grant, but it required $5,000 in matching funds from the community. Originally we had talked about using it to focus on the design for the linear park on Adams Street, but then in the midst of all of that came the Neighborhood Revitalization Grant opportunity, which kind of caused us to shift a little bit.”

The grant had to be used for professional services only, such as planning for a project or design. Stalker explained Muldrow came to Creston earlier in the year to get a feel for the city and community itself.

“Ben came and he did a driving tour, a walking tour, met with several different committees to gain some insight on the community, the priorities, what we love about our community, and really built an entire brand off of that,” Stalker said. “I really thought we were getting a logo, and we got so much more from that.”

The main logo features rolling hills, part of the restored depot and a hot air balloon in bright colors. Other branding includes a city seal, matching signage throughout the city and standards for text in paperwork.

Councilmember Josh Thompson said he was in favor of the new branding.

“I was at the presentation and I liked everything that they presented. Moving forward things coming from the city would be unified and very standardized,” Thompson said, also mentioning the city council only had so much power when it came to the branding. “There’s only so much that the city itself has jurisdiction over. A lot of the things, like if Update Uptown wants to do certain signage, we’d at least provide a certain method of how to approach that so that it’s consistent with what the parks and rec does, with update uptown and other sections of the city.”

While the council was overall supportive, councilmember Jocelyn Blazek shared concerns regarding the depiction of the restored depot.

“The building in that is supposed to be the depot, but to me it doesn’t scream depot,” Blazek said. “That’s one of the defining features in Creston and I don’t feel like that image is an accurate representation of the depot.”

Blazek did state the rest of the branding seemed wonderful, with the representation of the depot being her only issue.

The image of the depot in the logo is meant to represent one of the window sections at the top of the depot, something Stalker said the designer was heavily drawn to.

With no other comments or issues from the council, the new branding was approved unanimously.