Reprinted with permission from the Vincennes Sun-Commercial newspaper
The Knox County Development Corp. is reinventing itself.
On June 4, members at its board of directors meeting at the new Charles C. Hedde MD Health Education Center at Good Samaritan officially voted to give itself a new name and adopted a new logo to go along with it.
“We are really excited to show you all what they’ve come up with for us,” said Leslie Beard, the organization’s marketing committee chair, as she introduced officials with TD Advertising in Columbus.
The KCDC — as it’s been known locally for years — will now operate as Knox County Indiana Economic Development.
In recommending the change and new logo, Todd Dickerson with TD Advertising suggested it was needed to differentiate Knox County from all the others — and there are several.
There are cities and counties named Knox in Nebraska, Illinois, Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky, to name a few. There is also a city of Knox in northern Indiana.
So a simple Google search, he said, can prove confusing.
“You can end up in lots of different areas,” Dickerson told the group. “And to make matters worse, they’re all right here in the Midwest. There’s lots of room for landing in the wrong spot.”
Including Indiana in the name, he said, is likely to reduce some of that confusion.
In seeking out a new logo — an endeavor started months ago — the economic development organization sought a new kind of brand identity, officials said, one that would elevate the organization as it looks to attract more business and industry.
Dickerson said the new logo should also work to retain business and talent, help the county grow economically, and “be the spark that elevates the community” in terms of everything from investment to jobs and even tourism.
“Now, that’s a lot to ask of a logo,” he quipped, “but the new website will be an extension of that brand.”
TD Advertising is working on the new website currently, and Knox County Indiana Economic Development hopes to launch it later this summer. The logo itself is relatively simple, Dickerson pointed out, using shades of blue — to show “strength and professionalism” — and both positive and negative space to create dimension.
Keeping it simple, however, allows it to be used in a variety of scenarios and targeted print materials, things like “Knox Workforce” or “Knox Living” as well as the organization’s existing tagline, “Opportunity Knox.”
“You have one shot to tell people who you are, where you are and what you do,” he said.
The organization’s CEO Chris Pfaff said while the name Knox County Development Corp. — specifically the shorter KCDC — has high brand recognition within the community, outside this region, “even a county or two away,” he said, people often don’t know it at all.
In recommending the change, Pfaff said the new logo — and pending website design — is the result of a lot of hard work, discussion, and due diligence.
“KCDC does not mean anything to people without spelling it out for them. This (new) brand really reflects who our target audience is,” he said, referencing business and industry leaders living all across Indiana and, possibly, the U.S.
“This gives us the opportunity to talk about Knox County, Indiana, which is why we are proposing to use all of those words in the name.”