Over the years, the Town of Erin has lacked a consistent and unified brand identity. Multiple versions of the “shamrock” logo and the "maple leaves" logo have been used, leading to confusion and inconsistency. As you can see from the images below, there have been multiple variations of the “shamrock” logo and different signage styles used across our town, creating confusion and inconsistency. These variations, along with the absence of brand standards, have led to poor-quality reproductions of our logo, often distorted and unclear.

As our town continues to grow, it’s important to establish a clear, professional, and cohesive identity that represents the Village of Erin, Hillsburgh, and the surrounding hamlets that create the Town of Erin.

Your Brand Already Exists

This refresh is not just about creating a new logo or adding a catchy tagline. It’s not about changing who we are as a town— our residents, businesses, history, culture, and values remain at the heart of Erin. Instead, this process is about bringing clarity to how we present ourselves, telling Erin’s unique story, and highlighting what makes our community special.

The refreshed brand creates a cohesive and recognizable image for Erin, bringing together all our hamlets, urban centres, and rural areas under one unified community. This consistency not only strengthens community pride, but also attracts new businesses, boosts tourism, and supports our long-term economic growth. A unified brand helps tell Erin’s story, highlights our local assets, and presents us as a forward-thinking and welcoming community.

There’s no better time to refresh Erin’s brand than while we’re in the process of developing our Strategic Plan. Strong branding helps translate the goals of the Strategic Plan into clear, engaging communication that resonates with our community, businesses, and visitors. It’s a tool that brings the Strategic Plan to life by showcasing Erin’s authentic and distinct identity to the world.

This refreshed brand will work hand-in-hand with our Strategic Plan, helping us move forward with a unified message and clear direction. It’s about positioning Erin for future growth, while maintaining our unique character and values.

By aligning our brand with our strategic goals, we ensure that our vision for Erin is communicated consistently and effectively, setting the stage for long-term success.

We moved quickly to align the new branding with the construction timeline of the new water tower, a fantastic opportunity to brand a long-lasting piece of large infrastructure. However, the urgency to place the branding on the new water tower led us to expedite certain timelines to avoid additional costs to taxpayers, but we now realize that this came at the expense of robust community engagement.

Trajectory Brands Inc. was selected to create the new brand from three reputable agencies, all recognized for their experience in municipal design. Trajectory emerged as the best fit for Erin. Not only did they offer the most competitive pricing, but their outstanding reputation for delivering exceptional work in municipal branding made them stand out. Their deep understanding of what it takes to craft an identity for a community like ours made them the ideal partner to bring Erin’s refreshed brand to life!

The brand refresh was an important project that required specific expertise and experience in municipal branding. While we value and support local businesses, our priority was to find a partner with a specific skillset and experience to meet the goals of our community. We carefully evaluated three of the most reputable agencies in municipal branding and ultimately selected a firm that demonstrated extensive experience in municipal branding and ultimately chose Trajectory, a firm with extensive experience in this field and the most competitive pricing.

The brand concept was developed through an interactive and collaborative process with staff and council. The initial direction was to explore a range of ideas, from updating the current shamrock logo to completely new concepts.

We reviewed several creative presentations, with staff and council providing valuable feedback at each stage. Based on this input, refinements were made along the way, ultimately leading to the creation of this logo.

The story of our community has always been here- this new visual identity simply aligns with that story, helping us tell it in a clearer and more cohesive way.

The shamrock was originally the logo for the Village of Erin, but the Town of Erin is much more than just the village. Our community includes two urban centres— Erin and Hillsburgh— along with six hamlets and four rural clusters. Because of this, we needed a logo that represents the entire Town of Erin, ensuring it’s inclusive of all the areas that make up our community.

While the shamrock is no longer the main logo, it’s still very much part of our identity. As you’ll see in the examples below, the shamrock has been incorporated as a secondary graphic element, appearing in patterns and designs. This stylized shamrock, based on the heart shape in the new logo, is a nod to our heritage and will continue to have a presence in various applications.

That’s OK if you don’t – not everyone will. But rest assured, just as you may see a building you don’t think is attractive, it was designed by industry professionals according to best practices, industry standards, and field expertise.

In other words, logos, as with all visuals, are subjective. They are assigned meaning by the stories we tell about them and the places they represent, which means residents have a meaningful role to play in how this logo is interpreted, understood, and embraced by those who will encounter it.

A brand is not a logo, product, or service. A brand is an emotional connection continuously created through experiences delivered and stories told. If you think of a brand as a book, the logo may be on the cover, but the brand is all the pages of the story that follow.