In early 2012, public affairs firm Lenox Consulting hired SD Shields to produce branding and identity for an urban redevelopment plan about to be unveiled in Hackensack, New Jersey. While the city had already retained the services of noted urban design firm DMR Architects to produce a comprehensive plan for the city, what was lacking was a single vision to help sell this plan to prospective developers, as well as local residents and business owners.
At the time, the title of the plan was the simple, yet decidedly unsexy “City of Hackensack Rehabilitation Plan for the Main Street Area in need of Rehabilitation.” Literally dozens of logo comps were presented utilizing different project names, slogans, and design elements specific to the city’s culture and history. The final badge-and-banner-style logotype approved by the City features a small city skyline meant to evoke the future of Hackensack’s downtown and incorporates the City’s official illustration of Oratam, a 17th century Chief of the Hackensack tribe, providing the project with a sense of grounding in the City’s history.
Main Street Hackensack was officially unveiled to the public in April of 2012 with a full public relations campaign. In addition to the new website MainStreetHackensack.com, a second branded microsite dedicated to press clippings and releases was also launched at News.MainStreetHackensack.com. The news site also ran on the same WordPress platform, but utilized a much more simple, lightweight theme using the same identity kit, but geared toward ultra fast load times, search engine optimization, and easy social sharing.
On the print side, we produced 4″ x 6″ Save The Date postcards and 6″ x 9″ invitations for the project’s developer breakfast, as well as a bi-fold brochure laying out key points from the official plan – background about the project, architects’ renderings, a bird’s-eye perspective map of the redevelopment area, and brief overviews of the different development zones, their definitions and requirements.