The Village of Valemount is retiring their old logo in favour of a new one, which has been used by Tourism Valemount already for several years.
In a report to Council, Economic Development Officer Silvio Gislimberti gave a brief history of the branding process.
In the Spring of 2008, the Tourism Committee of Council engaged in a process of developing a branding and marketing strategy. The branding exercise included various steps such as identifying the visual identity, the perception and the brand personality of Valemount as felt by residents and visitors.
A survey found the following were important concepts to convey: Simple • freedom • openness • calm • personal • warm • casual – not formal • friendly • laid back, easy going.
These attributes then guided the Tourism Committee to finalize the logo, its tagline, and the main marketing proposition.
The Tourism Committee, then, chose the sun-snowflake symbol to highlight the year-round
outdoors possibilities and to express Valemount’s attributes (simple, freedom, openness, friendly, etc.); the sun-snowflake symbol is also more distinctive among the many representational logos (mountain logos) used throughout BC and Western Alberta; finally the sun icon also represents a continuation of the actual Village Logo (mountains and sun) developed by Laurae O’Dwyer in the 1980s.
The final logo package was completed in October 2008. In November 2008, a new mayor was elected and the Councillor who was a member of the Tourism Committee was no longer on Council.
In 2009, the Tourism Committee presented to Council the new logo for Tourism Valemount and asked Council to also adopt the logo for the Village of Valemount. At that time Council did not have sufficient information about the whole branding process and felt that the logos needed some distinctive traits to differentiate the uses for the Village and Tourism Valemount. In the meantime, Tourism Valemount modified the original logo and replaced the expression “Village of” with the word “Tourism”.
Gislimberti advised Council that little staff time would be needed to prepare some electronic letterheads with the new logo.
The new logo could be introduced over time with no extra costs when replacing letterhead paper, business cards, adhesives on vehicles, etc.
Gislimberti said for tourism marketing and economic development promotion purposes, one logo and one tagline are proven to be stronger.
Council agreed to retire the old logo and use the new one from now on for any Village materials or signs. Mayor Andru McCracken spoke about the importance of a consistent branding strategy and logos, which could occur now that Tourism Valemount and the Village use the same image for marketing purposes.
