Canton undergoes visual rebranding
To the naked eye, there appears to be a lot going right in Canton these days.
The town has recently attracted major businesses from Asheville and Waynesville — Western Carolina Freightliner and Bearwaters Brewing, respectively — and also seen vigorous new development in its recently streetscaped downtown corridor.
Now, Canton has its sights set on a comprehensive rebranding effort, meant to serve as a visual public relations statement of what the town is rapidly becoming.
“Image is everything,” said Town Manager Seth Hendler-Voss. “Having a brand that’s inspiring, edgy and fresh conveys a municipality that has a vision.”
Indeed, the science of branding has been critically important for decades — recall Mail Pouch Tobacco, Coca-Cola and even Milton Glaser’s famous “I ♥︎ NY” campaign — and has become even more so in the internet age, where savvy businesspeople and upwardly mobile families alike can easily evaluate where, exactly, they’d like to live, work and play.
A municipality’s brand is among the first things one would encounter during a job or home search, and can make or break a first impression.
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Canton Alderman Zeb Smathers attested to the importance of the new brand.
“The redesign of our town’s logo is the next bold step in redefining how others see Canton,” he said. It joins an improved website and marketing plan that we hope continues the success in having people across the region see Canton as viable small town for families, recreation and business.
Hendler-Voss supposes that this is the first such effort undertaken by the town “probably since the ‘70s.”
This year’s town budget allocated $5,000 toward the design of a new logo, the colors, fonts, and styles of which will be incorporated into its new $25,000 website.
The proposed design, which will eventually become ubiquitous on the town’s marketing materials and other such branding opportunities, was presented to the town board by local design firm Creative Campfire.
Founded in 2014 by Maggie Valley native Jacob Sutton, his brother Luke and lifelong friend Chris Pruett, Creative Campfire is a full-service marketing firm that produces audio, video, print advertising and graphic design for clients like Cataloochee Ski Area, Haywood Community College and Sunburst Farms.
Jacob Sutton attended Southwestern Community College, where he studied graphic design. He serves as the company’s creative director as well as director of photography for video production.
Sutton became a self-taught videographer after a suffering an injury that prevented him from snowboarding. He began filming friends snowboarding and “fell in love” with filmmaking, which then led him to travel throughout the west coast and Asia as director of photography for a professional snowboarding movie.
Luke Sutton is the firm’s photographer, colorist, and drone pilot; Pruett films, sometimes directs, does some design work and also heads up the audio department.
“Whether it’s video production, graphic design or photography, we live for telling stories and strive to put story at the heart of each project,” Jacob Sutton said. “We wanted to tell Canton’s story.”
The story Sutton and his firm were trying to tell with their work on Canton’s logo is one that incorporates the major elements the town offers — industry and environment.
Sutton’s firm presented the preliminary logo to Canton’s town board Nov. 10.
Central to the image is the paper mill that has dominates the town’s landscape; illustrated in a deep grey, it lies embedded in but also in stark contrast to semicircular green arcs meant to portray Canton’s majestic mountain backdrop, as well as the wavy blue lines depicting the Pigeon River that runs through town.
All that imagery is enclosed by a big maroon “C” fashioned to look like the proverbial gears of industry that have driven Canton almost since the day it was a sleepy hamlet called Buford.
“We got an overwhelming amount of positive feedback on it,” Sutton said.
Canton’s Town Board will revisit the logo at its next scheduled meeting, where they will accept it, tweak it, send Creative Campfire back to the drawing board or do nothing at all.
“My final feeling on the logo will be determined by the opinions of the public,” Smathers said.
