The city of Gilroy, California
– a community with a spice for life.
If the city council gives this slogan the thumbs-up Monday, it
will become the city’s official tag-line
– meant to attract people to Gilroy.
Don’t forget to weigh in on the new slogan by voting in our web poll, to the left.
The city of Gilroy, California – a community with a spice for life.
If the city council gives this slogan the thumbs-up Monday, it will become the city’s official tag-line – meant to attract people to Gilroy.
“I think we definitely are a community with a spice for life,” said Councilwoman Cat Tucker, who sits on the 14-member Gilroy Visitor’s Bureau Board of Directors that approved the mantra and logo last month. “I don’t know what the other council members will say, but I really like it.”
The council voted to give the visitor’s bureau – whose board of directors includes the city, Gilroy Gardens, the nonprofit Economic Development Corporation, the Gilroy Premium Outlets, Mama Mia’s restaurant and Solis Winery – $73,000 earlier this year to hire Articulate Solutions. The local consultant, led by Creative Director Katherine Filice, will spend about half of the money to design an intricate network of paths throughout the city. It spent the first half to advertise and create the refreshed city image that the community can use to bolster business. At least that’s the idea.
“I hope it works,” said Councilman Perry Woodward as he studied the image and words for the first time and pondered his response. “Wow, I mean, this is so far from my area of expertise,” the lawyer added.
Mayor Al Pinheiro declined to comment.
Filice and a team have advertised their project to cull residents’ and outsiders’ ideas and thoughts – some more scattered than others – since February to design the logo and accompanying slogan. At additional costs, they will festoon city vehicles, stationery, signs and aesthetically unite organizations such as the Gilroy Foundation and the Chamber of Commerce that now have a cacophony of seals and sayings swirling about the city.
After the council approved the project in January, a handful of residents said spending $37,000 on a design and tag-line was a bit much, but upon seeing it after lunch downtown Thursday, Elissa Archuleta thought otherwise.
“If it attracts more people and brings more business to Gilroy, then I think it’s worth the money,” said Archuleta, a 27-year-old raised in Gilroy and in the process of moving back after a two-year stint in Fresno. “The garlic bulb is cute, and the slogan’s catchy.”
The swirly green “g” character derives from a sixth-century wood cutting style, but the typeface conveys modernity, and the green and brown letters imply agriculture, according to the bureau’s development summary. And the subtle garlic bulb at the bottom of the “g” pays homage to what many associate with Gilroy, according to Filice.
“The fact that Gilroy is synonymous with garlic and how much the Garlic Festival is a reflection of our community should clearly be recognized and considered in our development of our community mark,” wrote Katherine Filice and a colleague before they submitted their ideas to the visitor’s bureau for consideration in May. As far as the logo, “it communicates the sense of community that was so important to survey respondents, as well as putting a clever, innovative twist on the use of garlic and the activities that are available to residents and visitors.”
Yes, there is much more than garlic, according to the 178 residents who mentioned garlic or the Garlic Festival as Gilroy’s primary quality only 4 percent of the time, whereas the 33 outsiders surveyed did so 12 percent of the time. Most of the respondents pointed to the people and community, the beautiful open space and the Gilroy’s small town feel as their chief associations with the garlic capital.
One non-resident who works in Gilroy wrote: “People here smile as you see them and conversations can be struck up merely by sharing a sidewalk, provided it isn’t a cracked one.”
“It was great to live there, too bad I had to move to Texas,” wrote another non-resident.
People also used the survey to vent or as a soap box, calling for everything from a new post office to the shuttering of certain businesses and deploring the city’s crime rate and traffic problems.
“The library sucks; shut it down. The arts center is a stupid idea. The schools suck; dump the union. Someone needs to open a strip joint downtown,” wrote one terse respondent.
“I would suggest three more questions asking what we don’t like. It would give an even balance,” wrote another surly respondent.
“New logo? ‘Sanctuary City, U.S.A,'” wrote another naysayer who called for more deportations.
But most of the respondents came back to Gilroy’s agrestic character: “Born and raised in Gilroy, I have seen the growth since I was a kid, yet the small town atmosphere is still the same.”
Some of the runners-up for the slogan were:
A small town with a lot of flavor
Respect for our past, vision for our future
We’re in the middle of it all
Something special is happening here
Something for everyone
Although the design and slogan are done, Filice still has more to do because the council also approved an additional $37,000 earlier this to fund a so-called “way-finding system.”
Popular in European cities, these systems include maps, signs, brochures and the like to help residents and tourists navigate their way through cities, both physically and historically. The new city logo and slogan will augment Gilroy’s future directional system, according to Filice.
“The wayfinding system is in process and will fully gear up once the mark is approved. We are going through similar outreach and design phases for the wayfinding system. In terms of when the signs will be installed, that may or may not be a budget related question. The system is extraordinarily comprehensive and will be complex in it’s installation needs. The design part of the project will be done by late summer,” wrote Filice in an e-mail.
