Sneak Peak : City Seal gets a makeover

The City of Santa Clarita's 20 year old seal is undergoing a light cosmetic makeover, SCVTalk has learned. The colorful round seal, which features elements of Santa Clarita's residential and commercial areas, its rolling oak-studded hills, and its western heritage, has already been updated with a new font type and some other changes. The major change is the font for the words "CITY OF SANTA CLARITA" which has been changed from a western-looking style to a more modern font. The font for the words "Founded on 15 December 1987" has been enlarged but appear to remain otherwise unchanged.

Gail Ortiz, communications manager for the City, explained those changes and some others in an email to SCVTalk. "Basically, we are using a new font, plus we cleaned up the seal art by modernizing a few things like the tree limbs and the windows in the bulding," she said. Ortiz also said that the city is standardizing some of its graphics across the city. "We are just starting to implement a new graphics system citywide." The changes include the new seal. SCVTalk first noticed changes to the City's seal in the City's Tour of California post card mailer, which was sent to area residents the week before the race. "We wanted to keep the original seal, just make it better," Ortiz said. SCVTalk was not able to learn when the City will officially announce the change or update the seal city wide, but the revised seal already appears at the top of the City's website. SCVTalk contributor Chris Austin liked the new font, but said the distant building in the seal still looks like a "power transformer, a slinky or possibly a hairbrush." What do you think of the City's re-designed seal?

Comments (2)

mikeMarch 1 at 10:59 PM PT

when I was an intern, back in the day, the seal was disliked by city staff for all sorts of reasons- it was corny, the old west lettering clashed with the rest of the seal and if you'll notice, it requires a four-color process to print. Some years later, I recall the City Council rebuffing, quite sternly, an attempt to come up with uniform branding and stylistic guidelines for presenting the city's name in a way that did not use the seal. Assuming they are cool with this much, I think it's a step in the right direction. The seal is okay, but the font was silly.... I'm not sure what I think about the new one. I think I like the text better this time around, but don't like the changes to the graphic elements. I'm no arborist, but the new tree looks far less oak-like, which is appropriate, because oaks don't figure into the scenery like they use to. This one looks newer, bushier... like some non-native shading tree you see in old Valencia. Does anyone know why a city would trademark the expression "Founded 15 December 1987™"?

korenOctober 24 at 6:27 PM PT

I can hardly notice the differences. I hope we're not spending millions of dollars replacing every seal in town like the proposed seal modification for Los Angeles (removing the cross).

mikeMarch 1 at 10:59 PM PT
when I was an intern, back in the day, the seal was disliked by city staff for all sorts of reasons- it was corny, the old west lettering clashed with the rest of the seal and if you'll notice, it requires a four-color process to print. Some years later, I recall the City Council rebuffing, quite sternly, an attempt to come up with uniform branding and stylistic guidelines for presenting the city's name in a way that did not use the seal. Assuming they are cool with this much, I think it's a step in the right direction. The seal is okay, but the font was silly.... I'm not sure what I think about the new one. I think I like the text better this time around, but don't like the changes to the graphic elements. I'm no arborist, but the new tree looks far less oak-like, which is appropriate, because oaks don't figure into the scenery like they use to. This one looks newer, bushier... like some non-native shading tree you see in old Valencia. Does anyone know why a city would trademark the expression "Founded 15 December 1987™"?
korenOctober 24 at 6:27 PM PT
I can hardly notice the differences. I hope we're not spending millions of dollars replacing every seal in town like the proposed seal modification for Los Angeles (removing the cross).