A brand for St. Joseph – that’s the topic of conversation during a two-day session among some local creative minds. 

The St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce, along with the St. Joseph Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, the City of St. Joseph, the Downtown Partnership and other area organizations is holding a “Design Charrette” or planning session Tuesday and Wednesday. 

The purpose of the 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. sessions over two days is to come up with a brand for St. Joseph. 

According to St. Joseph Chamber Director of Communications Kristi Bailey, when they talk about branding, it’s not just going to be a new logo. 

“We’re wanting to do an entire campaign – a long term, ten-year campaign,” Bailey said. “So it’s going to be a logo, a website, a billboard, potentially and a social media campaign. It is going to be that answer (to) ‘Why do you live in St. Joe?’ We want to give people that answer, that ‘top of mind’ and they will remember that because of the brand and and the different media outlets we get it out in.” 

As part of the branding process, a group of 12 community members were brought together for the brainstorming sessions this week. The group includes local graphic designers, musicians, photographers and more. Bailey said they chose local people because they wanted the branding to be authentic. 

“We could have put our budgets together and hired a Kansas City or Omaha firm to tell us why St. Joe is great, but we want authentic,” Bailey said. “Our residents will not buy it if it isn’t real. So the best way is with our own creative talent and it’s not just with one advertising agency. That’s why we brought together people from different ad agencies, different employers in the community to work this out. So we are not only spending our budget locally but we’re getting the best use out of our money to get this brand that is authentic, real and hopefully very creative.” 

Each small group at the sessions is coming up with concepts and at the end of the sessions on Wednesday, the plan is to have a vision formed and then design logos, a website and more from that vision for the community.