March 28, 2024

Council approves creating new Chief Osceola logo for city departments

When you think of an image that best represents Osceola, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?

One answer might be Chief Osceola.

The city is currently in the process of redesigning and upgrade its website.

Ty Wheeler, Osceola administrator/city clerk, said the steering committee for the website found other cities had a “well-defined logo.”

“That logo not only was on the website, but it was on all the letterhead. It’s on their clothing, any sort of city-issued clothing and hats, etcetera,” he said.

Wheeler said the committee began discussing what would be the city’s logo, and the most predominant image throughout the city is Chief Osceola.

The chief is painted on the wall inside the council chamber. There’s a feather on the water tower and an artistic-rendition of the feather on park signs.

One banner

Wheeler said the purpose of the logo was for organizational purposes of city departments and “to pull them together under one single banner.”

According to Wheeler, the committee went to a local graphic designer who will come up with three different design concepts of Chief Osceola. There is a design fee of $1,400.

Then, the city council could have a work session and decide which logo is the best.

Councilman Glenn Schaff said he didn’t see what the issue was with changing what the city already has.

“I think the issue that we were trying to address is that we’ve got departments who’ve all kind of developed their own letterhead, or they’ve got their own images on their uniforms. We’ve got this website that’s terribly out of date,” Wheeler said. “What we’re trying to do is draw all of this together. I kind of feel as though we’re somewhat decentralized as an organization. I think this is one way that, symbolically, we can, maybe, pull everybody together, like I said under one flag or one logo.”

Wheeler added, he believes it’s important for the city to have “one identity,” instead of something different for departments such as Osceola Parks and Recreation Department, Osceola Police Department and Osceola Wastewater Department.

“I don’t think any of those departments have anything that is bad, but it would be nice, and I think productive, if we all had a single, unifying flag,” he said.

City-owned

Councilman Dr. George Fotiadis asked if the new logo would be something the city would own and have copyrights to. Wheeler said the answer was yes.

“I’ve been in this town since 1946, and always stuck by with what the logos we’ve got,” Schaff said. “I just don’t see the big change.”

The council approved proceeding with the logo design process.