Project Description

Inviting Business Leaders and Community Members to Take Root and Make Hempstead Home.

Hempstead Commerce & Civic Association is a group of business- and civic-minded people located in the small town of Hempstead, Texas who want to see their small town grow and prosper after years of neglect.

Identity | Print collateral | Web

Client: Hempstead Commerce & Civic Association
Employer: Design At Work
Role: Designer

Challenge

After a major highway through the city to Austin was replaced by a commercial highway that bypassed the area, the town of Hempstead went largely unnoticed and began to decline, creating a struggling community that needed to be revitalized in order to survive.

Goals

Create a sense of place around the city of Hempstead that highlights the ruggedness of the current community while also being forward-looking and promoting the charm of small-town Texas.

Develop a website that would invite community members to join the association to actively help rebuild their town, making it a desirable small-town destination for people, much like Brenham and Round Top, Texas have become.

Solution

The new logo mark pulls together the most iconic markers of the city: their water tower and watermelons—which used to be their largest export. The use of isolated images of the city highlights its charm and sweeping design elements create a sense of progress and movement helping to generate excitement among the community and garnering interest from non-local businesses to develop in the area.

It was important for the website to be easy to navigate, informative, and emphasize different aspects of the city that could be considered an incentive for new businesses to build here. It also needed to bring legitimacy to this newly formed organization to alleviate any concerns for users as they determine whether or not this is a destination they would want to either visit, live, or invest in.

URL: growhempstead.com