Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.

I went back and reviewed the City Council meeting minutes of June 26, 2018 and the specific item entitled Authorization to enter into a professional services agreement with Catapult Strategic Design, LLC for logo and comprehensive graphics standards guide services presented by Brent Stoddard, Public Affairs Director. I have included the actual item here:June 26 2019 Workshop Catalpult

It was “a request for City Council to authorize the City Manager to enter into a professional services agreement with Catapult Strategic Design LLC for consulting services related to brand positioning, designing and testin new logo concepts, and the creation of a comprehensive graphic standards guide in an amount not to exceed $65,000 for a term of no more than one year.”

One item of note within that request was, “ It is estimated that the process to develop and adopt a new logo will take approximately 12 weeks including public outreach efforts to get feedback on potential logos.” Is there anyone out there reading this blog that was contacted to give input into any new logo? If so, shoot me an email at clarkjv@aol.com .

I am also posting the contract with Catapult as it is a public document. Here it is: 1456_Services Agreement Logo and Comprehensive Graphic Standards Guide  Within it the scope of work is outlined as follows:

  • Brand Positioning Development $3,400
  • City of Glendale logo No charge/Pro Bono
  • Research to test logo $2,000
  • City of Glendale Graphic Standards Guide $57,950
  • Photography/Additional Printing Production $1,650

Total Estimate:                                                                                    $65,000

Graphic standards were to be created for (not an all inclusive list):

  • Stationary
  • Forms
  • Printed/Digital Materials
  • Signs
  • City Flag
  • Vehicles
  • Uniforms
  • Public Works – everything from manhole covers to bridges and park benches

In other words, the company would provide variations of the logo to be used on anything and everything public in the City of Glendale. While Council approved this contract,  I assumed that there would be public outreach in a recognized and public manner. This, apparently, did not occur. Rather a survey was sent out to ???

Having taken the survey twice with the first 5 submissions and the subsequent additional 5 submissions, I believe the survey was skewed. We were asked to rate each of the 5 submissions and the last question in the survey was to pick your first choice, second choice and so on. There was nothing that permitted the person surveyed to indicate that none of the choices were acceptable. It was almost as if you had to pick the logo that you considered the best of a bunch that you may have considered unacceptable. So, just like everyone else, I ended up ranking the 5 choices from the most palatable to the least palatable.

© Joyce Clark, 2019         

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