In case you don't frequent the website or the Facebook page, it appears that there was a new logo for RedTail posted at 4:34pm yesterday (February 16th).
In the grand scheme of the things going on with the village, the Golf Course logo might not seem like a big deal; but I think it is a metaphor for what we are all experiencing and feeling as of late.
Here's the old one:
Here's the new (taken from the top of the webpage) and I purposefully took the one version you could almost read:
Since this morning, this logo has been emailed, texted, Facebook messaged to me all asking the same thing -- what is the world is THAT??
I do not know the source or who designed it -- but there's a problem beyond the fact it renders incredibly poorly on any sort of colored background.
Logos have meanings -- they are designed to evoke emotion and tell you something about the company they represent. Every so often, there's a "hidden meanings in logos" message passed around social media -- but I'll show you one to explain my point.
In the mid-90's, the 'absolutely, positively gotta be there overnight' company adopted the above logo. You may already know this, but in the white space between the E and the x is an arrow. This arrow is intentionally in the logo -- it is to stand for speed, accuracy, strive for perfection, and perseverance in achieving goals. It's part of FedEx moving forward from being Federal Express into this new brand of FedEx -- so fast, it can't even use it's full name.
As a marketer I know that single logo change took years to build, design, test, and build to be as iconic as it is today.
So -- naturally, when I looked at the new logo for RedTail -- I stopped and thought about what it says about our golf course.
The old logo -- a soaring hawk:
There's a reason that when using a bird of prey in a logo, the bird is often soaring. It evokes the feeling of growing, reaching new heights, movement, and lift. If you ever watch any bird of prey, an eagle, a hawk, a falcon, or even an owl, soar -- they seemingly float on currents of air. They rise effortlessly. They move with grace and little effort.
The new logo -- a striking hawk:
The body position of the new hawk is one about to strike his prey. He's threatening. He's about to kill. He is singularly focused on a single goal of striking a defenseless rodent in order to feed. He comes from no where, out of the sky, slamming through the air at great speed from great heights. Just beyond his talons is a small mouse who has no idea he's about to be lunch.
If you are a golfer, which hawk would you relate to? Is it the feeling of an effortless swing that soars through the air with power and speed OR is it the power of crashing to the ground from a great height?
Someone is saying that I'm overthinking this -- but that's what good marketers do. It's what people in business do -- they think through every angle of the image they portray to the public. But if you don't believe me -- maybe you should ask why no other RedTail Golf Club in the country uses a striking hawk as their logo -- here's just a few examples I found:
So, as a metaphor for the state of our village, this logo shift seems to point to the values of our village shifting from the effortless soaring of family values, high quality of life, and enjoying our friends and neighbors to the feeding on the defenseless -- or effectively creating two classes of residents in the village -- those who have the board's ear/favor and those who do not. This logo, in my mind, symbolizes what I've come to think of Phil's 'reign' in our village -- his actions, his focus, his push is all to a single purpose -- furthering his own influence and his goals. He sees himself as that striking hawk and we, neighbor, are his prey.
Think about all he has done to dismantle the village -- his overspending, his micro-management of the village staff -- either directly or through the CAO; his complicit inaction to the remove of the entire legacy finance department, how he destroyed leadership in our police department, and now he targets the person responsible for keeping all the records -- another defenseless resident targeted and treated poorly at the hands of Phil and his merry band of lackeys. When Phil is done with his time leading, what will be left of this 'better Lakewood' that he claims to be building?