Foley Main Street presents new branding

By Jessica Vaughn
Posted 8/4/20

FOLEY - After three years, the moment Downtown Foley has been waiting for is here. After spending the first year as a Main Street Alabama city setting a solid program foundation via a resource team …

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Foley Main Street presents new branding

Posted

FOLEY - After three years, the moment Downtown Foley has been waiting for is here. After spending the first year as a Main Street Alabama city setting a solid program foundation via a resource team and the second year conducting an in-depth market analysis, we have finally made it to the third stage: branding.

What is community branding? A personal logo and tagline to give visitors (and locals) insight into the community they have entered, and to leave them wanting to learn more.

“Whenever we go into a community one thing we like to think about with the brand is it’s a promise,” said Shawn Terpack with Arnett Muldrow, the company behind the branding process. “This is a promise to the people that are going to come to your community, that are going to experience what you have to offer, and we want to make this brand as authentic as we possibly can. We don’t want to overpromise and we definitely don’t want to underdeliver, but we want it to be authentic.”

Downtown Foley’s new logo, an oak tree standing before a rising sun, and Foley Main Street’s new logo, featuring the pedestrian bridge, were designed only after multiple roundtables were held with numerous community members. Designers listened to the stories and descriptive words community members used when talking about their community. They then took those stories and words and created a brand they feel best represents the community.

Along with the logo comes the tagline, which is just as important as the logo itself. Here in Downtown Foley, the tagline is, “Where the Gulf Coast begins.”

“We’re fortunate to be very near the coast here, but we are not on the coast,” Terpack said. “That was something that we wanted to allude to, but again with the authenticity we didn’t want to overpromise to people that ‘hey, once you get to Foley, we’re a beach town.’ We’re beach adjacent, but we’re just being honest. So we love the idea of this old oak that you find in all the neighborhoods and the side streets here, it’s really representing those deep roots that are in Foley.”

A lot of thought goes into the branding of any community. Research is conducted prior to designing concerning other major entities’ already established logos. Terpack stated while the design team wants the new branding to fit in with the surrounding community, they want it to be unique and to standout as well. After listening to local residents describe their home, the design team creates a color palette to reflect the community. Even the font that will be used on the branding is deliberate. Foley’s three fonts represent a timelessness mixed with modern feel and a nod to the energy of the community, stated Terpack.

The brands can work in different orientations, in multicolor or single color for promotional purposes, and can be integrated into future event promotions within Main Street.

“You are in a very unique position as you are this corridor where you have a lot of people driving through your community to get somewhere else,” said Terpack. “A lot of people like to say that they’re the gateway to the mountains or the gateway to the beach, but the problem with that often is that a gateway is what you just go through to get to your ultimate destination. We want to be a stopping place, we want people to slow down and see what’s here, and while they’re in the area consider coming here and get a very unique experience in your community.”

For more information on Foley Main Street, check out www.foleymainstreet.com.