League unveils new logo, tagline, web address, e-mail addresses
At our Annual Conference in Duluth on June 27, the League unveiled our new brand. Our new logo and tagline, "Connecting & Innovating since 1913," will be displayed prominently in the League's communications from this point forward.
All the elements of the new brand are based on what we heard from members in our strategic planning survey and focus groups last year. We've worked to develop a brand that reflects what members value in the League today and what they want us to focus on in the future.
The new brand reflects the League's strong history of service to Minnesota cities, and the fact that this service is core to who we are and who we will always be. It is designed to:
- Convey the professionalism of the League's programs, services, and staff.
- Reflect the role of the League in connecting our member cities to each other.
- Recognize that the League's innovative approaches are an important part of our organization's past and critical to keeping Minnesota communities strong and vital into the future.
Not all implementations of the brand will transition immediately. Through the end of August, we will draw down our reserves of envelopes and many other items. As of September, we expect to have almost fully transitioned to the new League brand.
Our new logo. The clocktower is reminiscent of both the League building in St. Paul and of city halls and community centers across Minnesota. The time on the clocktower (19:13 in military time) reflects the year the League was founded. The font used in the logo for the words "League of Minnesota Cities" is Trajan, a classic typeface used by stonecutters on Trajan's Column in Rome. One of the unique elements of this typeface is the fact that there are no lowercase letters and capitalization is implemented through a drop cap, which in this treatment draws attention to the League's acronym, "LMC."
Those who have only known the League during the past decade or so may only have known one League logo--an outline of the shape of Minnesota with "LMC" across the middle. In fact, the League has had at least six previous logos, an average of one each decade since the 1940s. With more than 12 years since the last brand overhaul, this change in the League's look was a little longer in coming but we hope members agree this is a change for the better.
Our new web site address. Another transition of note that is coinciding with the launch of the new League brand: Our web site address is switching from www.lmnc.org to www.lmc.org.
For a long time, www.lmc.org was owned by a small, New York television station. While we purchased this domain several years ago, we waited to make the transition until it could coincide with the launch of a new brand. We also wanted to make this shift in anticipation of a new League web site, which we expect to launch later this fall. Both www.lmnc.org and www.lmc.org will access the LMC web site for several years to come.
New staff e-mail addresses. League staff e-mail addresses are also changing. Both the current e-mail addresses (ending in lmnc.org) and the new e-mail addresses (ending in lmc.org) are currently operational--League staff can receive
e-mail from either address. We expect to keep both addresses operating for at least three years.
