City Council's New vision for the city, will bring a new visual look!

Prince Rupert City Council will soon be introducing some
new corporate branding for the community
(photo from past home mailer from the City of PR)

It would seem that new garbage cans won't be the only new thing that residents of Prince Rupert may see over the summer, with a graphic included in this years Annual Report indicating that the City of Prince Rupert will soon showcase a new corporate brand.

Whether it's a property tax bill in June, a letter of caution for bloggers, or an update for the community from Mayor Lee Brain; chances are if you have received a correspondence from the City it included the familiar crest and slogan of 'With Net and Pick, By Rail and Ship, we win our wealth'.

It is a nod we imagine to the early days just after Charles M Hays met his fate on the Titanic and what had been his dream of a super port facing Asia that would make for a community of note for the nation.

But a new vision, needs a new look and that, at least as the Annual Report indicates, will soon be revealed.

The Civic logo, top left from this letter from the mayor of 2015
is perhaps one of the most recognizable symbols for the city
and seemingly one that will soon fade from view 
as the City of Prince Rupert rolls out a new branding program

The first (and last it seems) public note of the plan for a rebrand came two years ago when it was listed as part of the BC Bid process in October of 2019.

The prospect of a new look was one that didn't seem to make it into any Council Discussions at the time or since that date.

Over the course of the last two years there were no updates as to the progress for the vision making program, who the contract was awarded to, or how much it would cost the community, or where the city was drawing the financial assets to deliver it.

When it comes to why the City Council had put it focus on the branding over other community themes two years ago, as the RFP from 2019 noted City Council had seemingly observed that:

Prince Rupert currently used our City Crest logo and crest and associated tag line are difficult to translate across all types of communication documents, and do not reflect our modern community.

The City has identified attraction and retention of population as a strategic priority, which requires a new brand that will support marketing initiatives and community outreach'

Once the bid process was underway, the focus for the new look included: 

Creation of a new logo that represents Prince Rupert 

Identify a brand identity and handbook, along with branded colour palette to complement the new logo

The original plan was to have the roll out take place in the summer and fall of 2020, but as the short note in this years Annual Report shares, COVID it seems put that decision on the shelf. 

Though it appears that the work continued through that period, most of it apparently through internal workshops and meetings and such that this Council makes much use of.  

However, much like the decision making when it came to the new recycling program, it came without a much word, or discussion on it from the Mayor and Council during their public Council sessions, which is the forum that residents most likely pay the most attention to.

And as the Council members are learning from the Recycling rollout through the City Facebook page and that of the Mayor, there are always questions from the public that could have perhaps been engaged with much earlier in the process, allowing the public to feel as though they have a stake in how the community moves forward.

At the most recent City Council session, Mayor Brain noted how the congeniality of the Council membership is in his view a very good thing for Prince Rupert.

"We're fortunate that we actually operate like a team and we're not like that as a Council, because other Councils, you can have clear divisions on those councils and then people,  those communities are not at service when those councils operate like that" -- Mayor Lee Brain at the June 28th Council Session

City residents might wonder if perhaps a little less congeniality and how if some open discussion on council themes and accountability towards the cost of the programs they launch ad the priority that they give them, might not be a helpful part of the team approach and be of service to the community.

The rebranding initiative and other elements of the Council vision for the future all came out of Council's Redesign Rupert era, you can look back and maybe find some hints as to what else may be on the way from our archive page.

For more notes on Council themes see our Council Discussion page.