City of KEO
Brand Strategy • Branding
Every community, from major metros to tiny towns, has a story to tell. Keo’s leaders had already begun identifying areas ways they could increase their town’s visibility and communicate their story to a broader audience when they reached out to Thrive.
The pecan has always been a major part of Keo’s history and identity, and they chose to rename their yearly fall festival the Arkansas Pecan Festival and proclaim their title of Pecan Capital of Arkansas on National Pecan Day. Thrive kicked into action to develop a visual brand identity centered around the pecan and the rebranding of the festival.
Having this clarity of concept was key to creating an engaging brand, but we knew that it needed to be useful to the city for all 52 weeks out to the year, not just during the festival. After a few rounds of designs, we landed on a new brand identity that did just that.
The pecan design sits within the name of the city itself, demonstrating its integral place in the community. The imprecise edges of the logo mimic the shape of the pecan and reflect the relaxed nature of the rural landscape. The colors and accompanying typography compliment these elements and communicate friendliness and history while still feeling contemporary. In addition to the primary logo, Thrive also developed a secondary logo to be used as shorthand and graphics for social media to announce the new identity and festival name.
We were thrilled with not only the result, but also the process of creating this identity with Keo. The community buy-in and clarity of vision that Keo’s leaders had built prior to our work made our job easy, and we believe are essential to a successful community rebrand.
