On Monday, the Overland Park City Council approved a new brand for Overland Park.
The brand includes modern, bold and optimistic primary logos that will foster pride in the Overland Park community.
Graphic devices include a map of the city that is unique to Overland Park, a varsity-like flag to signify local pride and connection, and a red oak tree that represents the City’s park-like feel.
The color palette features eight bold colors, allowing for more combinations to highlight different elements of the city.
The brand also uses a combination of fonts that correlate to strong vertical lines of the city’s geography, the organic feeling of the city’s parks, and its friendly and modern community.
An official City seal features the red oak tree, the official City tree.
“This new brand represents a dynamic and exciting chapter for Overland Park, capturing our desire for residents to ‘Shape your city,’ said Mayor Curt Skoog, who participated in the project development. “It reflects our commitment to being modern, welcoming, bold and optimistic. This brand fosters an even stronger sense of local pride and connection in our community.”
Branding process
The process of updating Overland Park’s brand began with community engagement. Overland Park launched an online survey, held pop-up events and conducted stakeholder interviews to determine the residents’ and visitors’ attitudes toward the City and the community.
City staff also collaborated with a committee of residents and industry experts to guide the development and design process, sharing their feedback throughout the project.
“The development of this new brand was a community effort, and I want to express my sincere gratitude to everyone involved,” Skoog said. “Thank you to our residents and visitors for sharing your perspectives and helping us define our brand values, to the Branding Team for their thoughtful guidance, and our City staff for their hard work and commitment to this project.”
Overall, staff found that while residents are proud of their community and the quality of life factors that Overland Park offers, they want a more modern and flexible brand that would allow them to express more community pride.
Next step: the City flag
The City encourages residents to participate in the next step of Overland Park’s branding process: developing a City flag.
Later this week, the City will launch a community flag design process.
Residents, visitors and others are invited to share their ideas for what a City flag should look like, including sharing potential designs.
Ultimately, the City will approve a new flag to be flown at City buildings and in Overland Park.
The City will begin changing over digital uses of the logo this week, including the website, newsletters and other communication channels.
Other City assets using the previous logo such as vehicles and buildings, will be updated during the normal course of maintenance and equipment replacement.
What you’ll notice this week
City staff will begin implementing the new brand this week.
The City’s website, social media sites and other digital properties will begin using the new brand starting Tuesday, April 22.
Other logos and branding touchpoints, including City vehicles and signs, will be replaced throughout their normal maintenance cycle.