BRADLEY BEACH — At the Bradley Beach Borough Council meeting on Tuesday night, Councilman John Weber led a discussion informing members about a committee dedicated to unifying town branding.
In a presentation, Weber highlighted Bradley Beach’s current symboling and logos, which are produced in a variety of ways throughout town.
“If there was some kind of incident and five vehicles all from Bradley Beach drove to the same spot, you would not know they were all from the same town because of the way everybody has a different symbol,” Weber said, displaying examples to meeting attendees.
The committee was established at the request of Weber over a year ago and is made up of Weber, Council President Jane DeNoble, Tourism Director Amy Hall, resident Kathy Smith, resident Melissa Butler, resident Shane Butler and resident Christine Dickler.
Right now, the presentation said, the borough uses various logos with different colors and fonts. The presentation showed street signs, borough vehicles, letterheads and trailers all with differing logos.
The committee got together, Weber said, and discussed establishing unified branding through a symbol, highlighting an icon of the town. According to the presentation, the committee wanted a logo that was unique to the town, with an agreed-upon font and color.
The presentation displayed a logo recently developed by Hall that features a picture of the Fifth Avenue Gazebo with “Bradley Beach, New Jersey” displayed under it.
“We settled on the gazebo because it’s unique to our town. It’s not a seashell, it’s not a wave and it’s not used by other towns. It’s the one thing; it’s in the middle of our town, it’s unique to our town and it’s a place where people gather,” Weber said.
The presentation displayed a few drafts made by the committee, all with the Fifth Avenue Gazebo, varying in specific designs from color to font.
Weber took meeting attendees down through the evolution the branding committee went through when designing the potential new town logo and ultimately presented the group’s final design submission. With the gazebo as the main pillar, the modern design is black and white and features the town name, with the year of its establishment, 1893, on the bottom.
Before residents were able to comment on the logo presentation Weber reminded meeting attendees, “This is nothing final.”
Weber explained that the presentation was merely providing residents and meeting attendees with an update into the committee’s work and invited residents and fellow council members to discuss their opinions on the logo.
DeNoble added, “You have the dune grass. It’s very significant in Bradley Beach. I think it represents the town well. I think the gazebo represents the small town feel as well, so you see a lot with this logo… It’s really simple but it says a lot.”
The effort to implement a new logo won’t happen overnight and old logos wouldn’t necessarily be stripped from their current locations, Weber said, but if a unified logo became established, “Sooner or later we would look like this unified branded town and I think that would be wonderful.”
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