BrightBlack designs the 108th Annual GeorgeFest Logo
Change is everywhere this year, and GeorgeFest is not being excluded. As many of you may or may not have noticed, GeorgeFest has an official logo this year to go with its new facelift. In prior years, the assumed logo has been mostly a portrait of our first President, George Washington. But now, the logo features the City of Eustis, as it holds the title of the second longest running GeorgeFest in the nation. To help with the new look of GeorgeFest, I asked (actually volunteered him for the job) Arron Lock of BrightBlack.
I took the time today to interview Arron to get more into the mind of this talented designer to find out why the drastic change (which was approved by the GeorgeFest committee) to the logo.
Me: Why did you choose the name BrightBlack?
Arron: The name came from a conversation I had with my girlfriend when I was getting ready to move. She made a comment about the majority of my clothes being black, and said “You have all shades of black here: dark black, bright black…” and the rest, as they say, is history.
Me: When did you start doing graphic design work?
Arron: BrightBlack was started in January of 2009, but I have been doing graphic design for nearly 6 years. I started out in early 2004 doing business card designs and selling tattoo flash (the stock art for tattoos.) By the summer, I decided to go to school and do this for real. I enrolled at lake Technical Center and started that August. I then went to work for a local web designer who wanted to offer print media design. It was after that, when I began to freelance again and decided to create BrightBlack.
Me: What inspired you to change the logo from a George Washington style on to your current design?
Arron: This year, the City of Eustis seems to be all about change. The fact that the city recently updated its logo and branding inspired me to do the same with the GeorgeFest logo. I wanted to offer a more modern and bold look to this year’s festival.
Me: Where would you like to see the future of GeorgeFest logos going: staying focused on the past designs or showing off the ideas of tomorrow?
Arron: I would by lying if I said I didn’t want the honor of designing it every year, but I think there are a lot of fantastic designers that are just getting started that would love the chance to work on a project like this. I think the logo should be left up to the designer’s individual style to showcase what they are capable of.
Me: How do you think the community will react to the new logo design?
Arron: I hope they like it! It’s certainly different than they have been used to in the past, but I have gotten positive feedback from everyone I have shown it to.
Well, there you have it. As Paul Harvey would say, “and that’s the rest of the story.”
I will be leaving the comments for this post open for readers and followers to share their feedback on the new design.
PS. Be sure to congratulate Arron, as he is new father of a handsome baby boy.
I just want to say thank you, Jason, for those kind words and the opportunity to be featured.
Arron is an amazing designer and I love the GeorgeFest logo. The heron is such a great visual immediately identifiable with Eustis to anyone who is familiar with the city.
C’mon February…I want a t-shirt and a hat (and maybe a coffee cup?)!
The logo is impressive, but i think it missed the mark of the “George” Fest.
It is like changing the logo of Coke to a light bulb. The same thing would happen if the citrus parade changed the logo to an elephant, the theme of the parade is not brought to mind when seeing the logo. If the logo does not match the name then how will those who are looking at the website know what you are celebrating.
If we are honoring our first president, then where is he?
Please take this as constructive criticism, not intended to attack, but to convey the ideas i have when i seen the image.
thanks for your hard work.
Isn’t the purpose of the logo to convey some messsage, however slight, about the product so everytime the viewer sees it, the person associates the event with the logo? It may be good graphics, but is certainly out of place with our event. It really is okay to not change everything. Does an event that has been about celebrating George Washington’s birthday for over 100 years have to buy into the latest buzzword? I am disappointed that the logo doesn’t come close to signifying our event.
@Tom and @Jim
I take all of your criticism as constructive and I appreciate the feedback. What you may not realize is that this logo was reviewed and approved by a board of 15 or more people. It was decided early on in this several month approval process that changing the logo to something that represented the city in lieu of the stale George Washington imagery to mirror the City’s new branding featuring the statue in Ferran Park.
You are both absolutely correct in the fact that a logo should convey a message about the organization/product it represents and the board felt that this logo did that in representing a progressive, patriotic feel while integrating something iconic of the City.
Thank you both for your feedback and I hope to see you during the festival!
I think the logo is a great design but not for the George Washington Festival, maybe a local politician running for a city council seat?
The logo is missing some key advertsing tenets. Jim and Tom are right on the mark. If a board of 15 people approved the logo it just means 15 people were short-sighted in my opinion.
Everywhere I have seen this logo used there is no date that tells people when the event is. This is a vital, key bit of information that should always be visable and easy to find.
Many people will look at the logo and wonder, George who, when? The logo swings so far off the Washington path that people who are new to the area will probably be clueless. Saying the image of George Washington is “stale” is an interesting remark. An artist with vision and imagination would have found a way to convey an image of our hardly stale 1st president in a fresh and bold way to fit with Eustis’ new branding. On a positive note, at least you and those 15 people got the color theme right.
Just quick note on what Bonnie said:
Most, if not all, logos should not be an advertisement. logo’s job is not to “advertise” the dates of the event. That is the chamber’s job. While the logo may fall short of representing George Washington, it is in no way meant to “advertise” anything. It is simply meant to represent and identify the event as an entity.
I suppose I should add before we get 100 more comments about “where’s George?” that the board of directors that made the final decision on this year’s logo also decided early on that they wanted to have something other than imagery of George Washington and wanted to represent the city more in the logo. I, as the designer, and the 15+ people put in charge of making the decision feel that this logo does exactly that.