From our planning department.

So at this time, we'll also have executive session this evening for discussion of matters concerning the medical, financial, credit, or employment history of a particular person, persons, or corporation on matters leading to the appointment, employment, promotion, demotion, discipline, suspension, dismissal, or removal of a particular person, persons, or corporation.

At this time, I turn it over to our city manager, Mr.

Alexander.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Good evening.

First up tonight, Carol Sammel is going to present the city logo design.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Very glad to be here and joined by some of our members of our working group.

And I want to share PowerPoint.

Hope that worked right.

So good evening.

Good evening.

So glad to be here.

And it's it's exciting to bring this project to fruition and to remind ourselves to start where we're really going, which is to the whole purpose of this is to market the city and to promote the city and to bring more business and investment to the city of Peakskill.

And that's the whole purpose of our creating a new logo and visual identity.

And that's what we want to do for Peakskill.

We know that benefits the level of investment that you see in any city.

The new logo we want and the visual identity is intended to create a clear contemporary consistent marketing image across all of our platforms and across our work.

And we want it to be used across different channels, different campaigns with our partners.

And we also want to say that it's to complement the city SEAL and is not intended to replace the city SEAL, but it serves a different purpose.

When we started this process, um, you know, we worked uh closely with the council, but with also with the community to um uh come to the place where we are today.

Um and and you know, we started the process, we brought on trajectory.

Um we undertook you know interviews across the city from different stakeholders.

We also did a two community surveys citywide.

We had op uh over 500 participants in those surveys, whether they were just gathering basic information about the city and what people wanted us to express in the logo or giving us feedback on the design.

Uh, but underlying that was this working group.

And it's the recommendation of the working group, the the design that you'll see this evening.

Um the working group was a cross-section of local stakeholders, uh, the Barthelmas are here today joining us.

We had several workshops and what just one-on-one conversations where we could really work through things, and they were really pr uh important to providing critical input, feedback, guidance throughout the process, and helping the ideas evolve and and grow.

Um, and that's what we're bringing to you today is the product of all of that and community engagement.

So the first part of this is our brand and how are we telling the story of um Peak Skill.

Our brand um is under one umbrella.

It's it's it's um it's a big stage with a lot of actors, three main actors is how it was described to me.

Like we've got three main parts of the city.

There are many different aspects of the city.

Um, but that those three main actors can help anchor our story and help us tell our story.

Uh the surveys validated this these ideas that are here today.

And it's supposed to tell our story today, but also help us into the future.

Um, and answer kind of why choose Peak Skill, why come to Peakskill?

The first kind of uh anchor or brand pillar is the river city with a natural edge.

Um that tells part of Peakskill story, but it's it's not the whole story.

Uh people really like this dichotomy of having nature surrounded by the city.

We are a historic center of creative makers.

People are very proud of that, and it's very central to our identity, whether that's dating back to when we were ironworks or today's artists and chefs and other creative um makers.

And then finally, we're powered by commute community.

People really find their place here, find their people here, and stay here sometimes for their entire lives, or move here and find a home.

These are the core kind of ideas supporting the cultural heart of the Hudson Valley, which is the core brand identity that the city of Peakskill wants to embrace that we think summarizes who we are today and into the future.

But you know, creating this uh visual identity is a is a real opportunity for some creativity.

Um, the city seal serves a certain purpose.

In today's day and age, we need to have something that works on all kinds of different media, uh, works online, um, and I I think you'll see this.

Um, but also showcases our energy or energy and spirit and the community that's here and helps attract people to it.

It needs to work in all kinds of sizes and formats.

That's something like the seal doesn't do.

We'll keep the seal uh for things, official documents, we should decide all what those are, working with city manager, but um, you know, the CD SEAL only serves um so many purposes.

Um it doesn't shrink very well, um it doesn't um give us all of the di dynamic uh aspects of online uh communication about who we are as a as a city.

Well, then also important is the market context, um, and that is to see who are our neighbors, how are they representing themselves?

Um, you know, we have a variety of logo types here, word marks, some color, some some just black uh and white.

Um so these this is kind of who we're comparing ourselves with in terms of our visual representation.

We were drawn um to be inspired by the community.