Santa Maria school district hires consultant for new logo to replace controversial ship
After deciding to drop its ship logo, the Santa Maria Joint Union High School District Board of Education has hired a consultant at a cost not to exceed $75,000 to create a replacement.
On Wednesday night, the board unanimously agreed to hire Zeste Consulting, a Studio City-based firm.
In September, the board heeded calls from some in the community to dump the ship image, linked to Christopher Columbus. Speakers aired concerns about the explorer’s abuse of indigenous people.
At the time, the board directed staff to return with a process and timeline for replacing the logo, leading to the proposal to hire the consultant. The district expects it to take about five months to craft a motto, logo and use guidelines.
Board member Dominick Palera said the company will do more than design a logo.
“It’s to identify what this district means and then to brand that so everybody in this community feels real good about it the way this board feels,” Palera said.
“I think it’s money well spent and I like the proposal and I support it 100%,” he added.
“I’m excited to move forward with this process,” board member Amy Lopez said, adding that the image should be culturally responsive.
During last week’s meeting, board members reiterated their beliefs that students should participate in the process along with other stakeholders.
“We definitely want to engage every stakeholder,” DeBonis said. “It’s going to be a much better process if we do. It would be remiss if we didn’t.”
After researching the history, district staff determined the origin of district’s logo remained vague and may have stemmed from former leaders deciding decades ago to copy the city, according to the school district’s research.
In 1971, the City Council adopted the ship as its logo, and it can be found today around City Hall, on city vehicles and police officers’ badges, and as decorative tiles on freeway overcrossings.
The high school district began using the ship on letterhead in the 1976 and 1977 board minutes and on letterhead in personnel files starting in 1979.
Research spanning 80 years, from 1901 to 1980, revealed that the board apparently never formally took action to adopt the logo.
Santa Maria, Santa Barbara County’s largest city, doesn’t have a connection to Columbus and instead adopted the name after discarding Central City to avoid confusion with a Colorado community.
District Superintendent Antonio Garcia said the goal is to develop a logo that represents the district today and into the future.
Zeste Consulting will help with rebranding of the district, and founder/president Michellene DeBonis explained that she has done similar work for other school districts as well as companies.
The process will involve stakeholder input, research and brand strategy development followed by a second phase focused on creating three or four options for consideration.
“What we’re really keenly interested in doing is identifying an idea and a visual representation that really feel like they’re reflective of you — not only for today but that you’re relevant also in the future and that they really capture what the overall direction is of the district as a whole,” DeBonis said.
The third phase would involve refining the logo and creating basic guidelines for its use, she added.
The board agreed to gradually replace the ship logo which already has been removed from the dais in their meeting room, but remains on the website and school district vehicles.
Noozhawk North County editor Janene Scully can be reached at jscully@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.