Ventura Shelves Plan for a City Logo

The Ventura City Council voted to put a civic “branding” study on hold but ordered staff members to come up with proposals for directional signs that would point visitors to major tourist spots.

The council voted unanimously Monday night to indefinitely shelve efforts to design a new logo, or brand, that would be used throughout the city to create a clear and consistent identity for Ventura.

But the council approved a staff recommendation to push ahead on designs for directional signs, which would point visitors to various city attractions, much as hospital or airport signs point the way to those facilities.

The first such signs would be aimed at motorists, said associate planner Brian Haworth. Initial signs would point visitors to what the city considers its primary tourist attractions: downtown, the harbor, the beaches and Pacific View Mall, Haworth said.

Staff members are to return to the council March 22 with various options, said Haworth, who added that he hoped some signs would be up by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, the city’s Visitors and Convention Bureau is putting a new face on its downtown headquarters in an effort to draw out-of-towners to the office.

A 12-foot diameter starfish, to be painted on the building at California and Santa Clara streets, will reflect the bureau’s own 18-month-old branding campaign, said Kathy Janega-Dykes, the bureau’s executive director.

That campaign, titled “Ventura: California Coast’s Rising Star,” aims to attract tourism through ads in newspapers and lifestyle magazines.

Janega-Dykes said the bureau gets about 22,000 visitors a year.

In the coming months, it will begin to focus on the city’s secondary attractions, such as shopping, dining and recreational activities.