An important aspect of the Lowell.com website is the look and feel. When a visitor navigates to Lowell.com, the logo is one of the first things that will be noticed. When we were working on the logo concept, the goal was to create something simple but meaningful to the city’s rich history and current resurgence.
For those who aren’t aware, Lowell, Massachusetts is sometimes known as the “Mill City,” as it was one of the first and largest textile manufacturing cities in US history. The mill depicted in the logo is part of the Boott Cotton Mills, a recognized historic landmark and one of Lowell’s famous mills. The Boott Cotton Mills is now a museum, luxury condominium/loft/apartment building and office building. I believe the logo is symbolic of the great history of the city, and how it is becoming a hip place to live and work (especially in the artist community).
I am proud to publicly debut our new logo, and I look forward to the date when our site goes live sometime in mid-February 2008.
The Lowell Project: Lowell.com Logo Unveiled
Gorgeous. Really unique 🙂
The logo looks great, Elliot.
It has been a pleasure reading of the intricacies and decision-making processes involved in taking this project from idea to development. Thanks for the great articles.
I hope some of the residents of Lowell have had the opportunity to follow your blog to get a sense of your commitment to and enthusiasm for this project.
Brad
Nice Logo Elliot…
I agree that you are keeping with the city’s history here. It makes it feel more local, which will attract local businesses and users who want local information and a local source for Lowell.
Nice work…
JB
Nice logo, Elliot. Who did you get to do it? Good logo makers are hard to come by. I often use Sitepoint though…
I like the new logo. Make sure it scales up and down well, for use in both large and small formats.
Elliot; I have some important IP/trademark info you should know about for your Lowell.com that I’m doing for my own community website. E-mail me and I’ll share it w/you; and you can decide whether or not to share it publicly (ie after you’ve filed for it).
Thanks for the great site you so graciously share w/everyone else.
There are many geo models to study for ideas. Two that I’ve watched over the years are:
Asheville.com — fairly static and easy to maintain though not providing much back to the community.
and
Saratoga.com — evolving into a truly dynamic portal where a lot of the “content” is provided by the advertisers.
Just some thoughts.
***UPDATED BY ELLIOT***
Thanks for sending those links. I knew about Saratoga.com but not Asheville.com. I think the content is going to come mostly from me at first, but as the word spreads and traffic builds, I expect more content to come from the advertisers. I am going to have to figure out how to automate the meta tags/keywords for each advertiser’s page, for better search positioning. Thanks!