Next version of Bainbridge logo comes together behind shroud of secrecy

Published 11:54 am Sunday, August 23, 2015

After weeks of floundering over what Bainbridge Island’s new logo should look like, the city and its out-of-state consultants have apparently reached agreement on the centerpiece of Bainbridge’s “branding” effort.

City officials, however, have pulled a protective curtain of secrecy around the latest mock-ups of the logo.

The city of Bainbridge Island rejected a request for public documents that would include depictions of the latest versions of the logo.

The request, made last week by the Bainbridge Review, sought correspondence on the branding effort between city officials and the South Carolina consultant firm that was hired earlier this year to develop new logos to promote the island.

In an email to the Bainbridge Review on Aug. 19, Christine Brown, the city’s public records officer, said the draft logos “are preliminary drafts and are exempt from release pending the final decision on the logo.”

Putting the logos out in public could “be injurious to the deliberative” process, Brown added, and “would inhibit the flow of recommendations, observations and opinions.”

The newfound secrecy surrounding the branding effort is a drastic change in direction for city hall and an identity concept process that city officials have earlier touted for its inclusiveness and transparency.

The first draft logos were unveiled in a night of orchestrated hoopla at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art. The city invited the community to a “brand reveal” meeting June 9 at BIMA to show off the initial logos, banner designs and pieces of the marketing effort.

The city’s new hush-hush approach on the branding project may have been prompted by the controversy that erupted after city officials and their consultants unveiled the first proposed logo designs at that June meeting.

The first logo design featured a shield topped with a row of three medieval-style battle axes floating above wavy blue lines, and community reaction to the design was swift.

Islanders called the battle axe logo “out of touch,” “cheesy, absurd and offensive,” “thrown together” and “hackneyed and graphically ugly.”

In response to the furor, city officials quickly said the battle axes would be removed from the logo and the consultants would “go in a different direction that better reflects the community.”

A search for identity

Work on the branding effort picked up steam this spring.

The city approved a contract with Arnett Muldrow & Associates in March to pay the South Carolina-based firm up to $22,545 to create a new logo and other branding materials that could be used by the city as well as the Bainbridge Island Chamber of Commerce and Bainbridge Island Downtown Association to promote the island in a coordinated fashion. All of  the marketing products would be owned by the city, but shared with local merchants and organizations.

After the big reveal two months ago, though, residents roundly ridiculed the battle axe logo presented by Arnett Muldrow & Associates as “truly awful” and “an embarrassment.”

And islanders just learning about the branding project lambasted local officials for hiring out-of-state design consultants when, islanders said, plenty of skilled designers could be found across Bainbridge or Puget Sound to do the work.

That move was especially troubling, some said, considering the ongoing “buy local” campaign pushed by downtown officials that encourages islanders to keep their money on Bainbridge.

Others also criticized the city’s notion for branding the island itself, saying it was unwanted and unneeded. Bainbridge was already flush with tourists and parking downtown was still a problem, some said.

City officials quickly retrenched after the June reveal and said the axe idea was being dropped, and asked for more input from residents on the community logo and branding effort.

But through the end of the comment period in June, residents continued to ask the city to dump the consulting firm and hire a local company to do the work. Islanders who said they never paid much attention to goings-on at city hall chimed in via emails to the city, asking officials to change direction.

The opposition was extensive. Nicole Oliver submitted a petition with more than 500 signatures asking city hall to start over. “The city made a terrible mistake in not inviting the many national award-winning design firms, artists and individuals of the Pacific Northwest to compete for the branding concept initiative,” she wrote.

The city should “reboot with a focus on local input and creativity with an attempt to create an open, transparent and inclusive process,” Oliver added.

The petition fell on deaf ears. City officials became defensive and downplayed the criticism, and City Manager Doug Schulze said the city would honor its contract with its consultants from South Carolina.

According to the company’s scope of services for its branding project with the city, Arnett Muldrow & Associates had expected the entire project to take eight weeks, and city officials said refinements would take four weeks.

Floundering redesign

Attempts to redesign a logo for Bainbridge Island have stumbled in recent weeks, according to emails released Wednesday by city officials.

The full extent of the city’s displeasure with its consultants, though, has been masked from public view.

While the city released documents showing recent emails between the city and its consultants, much of the comments about the logos — as well as images of the logos themselves — were removed from the emails before they were turned over to the Review this week.

Still, some disagreement over the direction of the branding effort is apparent in the emails that have been heavily redacted by the city.

Ben Muldrow, a branding specialist with Arnett Muldrow & Associates, presented the city with new logo ideas in mid-July.

“Here is the path I am walking down,” he said in an July 15 email to Kellie Stickney, the city’s community engagement specialist who has been leading the branding effort for the city.

In response, Stickney told the consultant that she had met with Jerri Lane, executive director of the Bainbridge Island Downtown Association, and noted, “We have a lot of thoughts about this direction.”

Stickney’s concerns, and the next six paragraphs of her email, were blackened out in the copy of the email sent to the Review.

“I look forward to seeing the next round of revisions,” Stickney concluded.

After Stickney emailed five days later to ask about the next round of revisions, Muldrow replied: “We have some new ideas to show you in a whole new direction. I’m on a branding tour now, but will send them when I get back to the computer!”

After Muldrow sent the new ideas on July 20, Stickney replied: “To be honest, I don’t understand the concept… Also, I’m not sure how this reflects the feedback we’ve provided.”

Muldrow then sent additional revisions, but those images — and the city’s comments — were blackened out of the released emails.

More revisions were received near the end of July, and Stickney wrote an email to Muldrow on July 28 that said one of the logos submitted was “the preferred option.”

Emails released by the city this week did not include an image of the city’s preferred option.

All told, the city withheld or blackened out 35 pages of emails between the city and its branding consultants. An accompanying document that listed all of the information that was withheld was 12 pages long.

City officials were unavailable for comment Wednesday after the emails were released.

End may come soon

Stickney said earlier the city was still working to complete the project.

She acknowledged that the effort had taken longer than previously imagined, and said part of the delay was due to summer schedules “and our being very diligent about incorporating the feedback we received from the community into the final product.”

A completion date has not been set.

“I believe we’ve really made some good progress from where we started in June,” Stickney added. “Any branding process goes through multiple stages of revision. This is very common.”

“We’d really like to have this wrapped up by the end of summer,” she said.