VisitNorman, Norman’s official marketing destination organization, and the Norman Sports Commission announced April 16 a brand refresh and launching of new logos.
“After the successful visitor guest tax increase in May 2023 that established the Norman Sports Commission, we embarked on a process to create a Norman Sports Commission brand and evaluate VisitNorman’s existing brand,” VisitNorman and Norman Sports Commission President and CEO Dan Schemm said. “Our board and staff are just thrilled to be able to share our brand and logos.”
In 2023, VisitNorman identified several agencies as potential partners for the project and selected Blaze Experts, based in Phoenix, to embark on the project.
“We were getting the RFP ready to distribute when Blaze Experts had a newsletter that said, ‘Every good brand has a logo but not every logo has a good brand behind it’ and added them to the list,” Schemm said. “The process from start to finish was fundamentally sound including out-of-state focus groups to help identify the brand architecture that would produce an appealing brand book and logos for our sports and sales teams to be able best compete within the marketplace.”
VisitNorman refreshed its logo in 2015 after an extensive brand exploration process in 2009. As part of brand creation for the Norman Sports Commission, Schemm, the staff and board wanted to include the potential of a brand refresh to ensure harmony with Norman Sports.
“Being familiar with Norman as someone who lived and worked in the area for so many years made this a really fun and exciting project for us at Blaze Experts. Having the opportunity to create a brand like Norman Sports for the very first time is uniquely exciting,” Jeffri-Lynn Campbell, Blaze Expert’s Founder and CEO, Brand Architect and Strategist, said. “We loved working with the team there in Norman from the first meetings to the last ones to create the mood boards, the tiered worksheet and brand architecture to arrive at the final brand book and logos.”
The primary logos being unveiled today will serve as the headliner logos on the website and other collateral materials. A variety of secondary logos will also be used depending on audiences. Those secondary logos include the state of Oklahoma shape and elements from the newly created Norman flag. The primary logos use two colors, a red and a blue, with black and white options, too.
A full brand book with tag lines, mood boards, color library, etc. will serve as the guide for all audiences segments.
Blaze Experts is a boutique branding agency that works with organizations that desire big impact in their communities. Blaze works well through collaboration with clients who are changing their slice of the world for the better, seeing that support as something bigger, igniting passion to fuel improvement.
VisitNorman exists to promote the city, to attract overnight meeting, convention, sport and tourism business to the community, and to enhance and contribute to the overall identity and economic wellbeing of the city. VisitNorman’s vision is to be the leader who proactively markets and develops Norman as the preferred destination in Oklahoma.
