It may be more bland than brand, but the whole InFrontenac thing is worthy of a try;

Jeff Green | Jul 27, 2016

At first glance, the branding exercise that residents of Frontenac County have bought and paid for has resulted in a dull, empty logo.

It has three colours representing rocks, fields and lakes, a crumpled maple leaf, and some clipart trees that are supposed to represent Balsam Firs and the four townships. Rocks, trees, lakes and fields are not unique to Frontenac County. Every rural jurisdiction in Ontario has them. And then the whole idea of Frontenac, as a concept, is kind of strange.

No one lives in Frontenac; nobody goes to Frontenac. I tell people I live in Sharbot Lake, and then I might say it's north of Kingston, or it's a half an hour west of Perth on Highway 7 but I would not say it is in Frontenac County. I would never say it is in Frontenac.

Frontenac isn't a place.

That, as far as I understand the thinking of RedTrain, the branding company that the county hired, is both the problem they were trying to solve and the solution as well.

The insight that came from their research was exactly as I have described above. The first thing they are trying to do with the logo is to instil the idea of “Frontenac” into the minds of those who live here. Once that happens the brand can move outward to tell the world that there is such a thing as Frontenac.

At the Frontenac News we tell stories about people in Frontenac County to other people in Frontenac County, and we know all too well how difficult it is to bridge the gaps between the different communities in this region.

The idea that RedTrain has developed is to take that empty Frontenac logo and fill it with content that is derived from Frontenac County - photos of the businesses that we have profiled in our paper over the years and that our partners at the Frontenac Community Futures Development Corporation have been championing as well.

They will take distinctive businesses and wrap them in the Frontenac concept.

Will Frontenac become as distinctive as Prince Edward County (i.e. The County), or Lanark County, or even Hastings County? Time will tell, but it provides a set of marketing tools that are as good as we collectively make them.

As to the under-whelming feeling in the room at County Council when the brand was unveiled, it can't have been anywhere near as palpable as the feeling in the board room of Nike years ago when a branding company unveiled an elongated check mark. And we all know how that worked out.

One more note. County staff really jumped the gun when they started to use the logo before it had been approved. Members of Frontenac County Council already feel that staff overstep their authority and this is an example of just that.

Now, to really bring Frontenac to life, why not bring Frontenac County into it?

County Council is facing a minimum cost of over $800,000 just to make their offices viable in the short term, and $2.8 million to make them viable in the longer term, according to recommendations of its CAO.

To me, the only argument against abandoning the current location of the offices is that the offices are already there and it would cost a pile of money to build a new office.

The county offices are located in the City of Kingston, in what is basically a hidden location. Storrington residents who travel on Montreal Road to Kingston pass by them every day but likely never notice them at all.

They bring no profile to Frontenac County.

If, however, new offices were built at the site of the Frontenac Arena or in the hamlet of Verona, the County would be located in its largest township, on its busiest road, where most North and Central Frontenac residents do drive on a regular basis. $2.8 million would be better spent on a brand-new building than on a renovation.

If the County wanted to make it a showcase of InFrontenac, the design could incorporate some of our unique features, and could involve the arts community.

Just a thought on a summer's day.