For the week of January 7 - 13, 2004

Hailey Chamber
crafts new logo

Slogan is being tested

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By MATT FURBER
Express Staff Writer

The Hailey Chamber of Commerce has a new logo created by Hailey artist Blake Thornton. The image is based on Thornton’s sense of the city’s connection with the Old West, so it has a historic quality to it, he said.

"It is a retro-look before there was retro," Thornton said. "I’ve lived in Hailey for a long time and I always appreciated the Western roots."

Thornton recently painted a mural on the wall masking the construction site on the north side of The Mint nightclub and pool hall. That temporary image has a holiday feel and will remain until the renovation of the building is completed later this year.

Like the mural that has a starry skyline that reflects Thornton’s landscape paintings, the new logo also represents an edge of Carbonate Mountain that looms above the chamber office at 15 W. Carbonate St.

"My landscapes are mostly from the south valley," he said. "I paint big oils that have an architectural feel."

They come from his fly-fishing photos, he said.

Chamber Executive Director Tom Smith said the new logo is more easily reproducible for the purposes of marketing the city, especially for tourism.

The old sign blew down in the storm that came in with the new year, Smith said.

The chamber is also promoting a new slogan for the city: "Idaho’s hometown in the mountains."

"We are the hometown in the Wood River Valley," Smith said. But, the slogan is not set in stone. "We’re still working with it."

The logo will go on a new four-color glossy brochure the chamber is producing for the Idaho Department of Commerce.

"The Idaho Travel Council will take it on tour," Smith said. "They will use the brochure as a way to advertise Hailey as a place to come as a tourist."

Smith said the travel council is even better than the one in Oregon where he worked previously.

"I hope it will have a shelf life of three or four years," he said. "I need to stretch those advertising dollars."

 

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