NorthEndWaterfront.com has a real logo, finally! Coming up on the site’s third anniversary and exactly one month since introducing the new magazine grid format, I am very pleased to share the final design that is emblematic of our core mission.
The logo bridges the local history of citizen journalism and the modern era of blogging, hyperlocal online news and e-zines. In coming up with the logo, I reflected on the original motivation to start the website as a way to efficiently disseminate the goings on at community meetings and events.
An obvious nod to the North End’s colonial roots, the image is not meant to be any specific patriot. However, the North End’s own Paul Revere is known to have operated a local printing press. A local journalism student, Hillary Larson, graciously compared the beginnings of NorthEndWaterfront.com as a community website to the burgeoning efforts of the first American newsletters and papers that were created here in Boston, including Benjamin Harris’ Publick Occurances and John Campbell’s Boston News-Letter.
I wanted the logo to highlight the inherent online nature of NorthEndWaterfront.com. By combining text, photos, audio and video, the site provides a multi-media experience for the readers. The e-newsletter has been hugely popular and the content appears on multiple social networks. Over the past three years, this technology has allowed NorthEndWaterfront.com to collaborate with many neighborhood groups, businesses, local officials and individuals to bring forth a tremendous amount of information. By adding features, maps and listings, the site has also become a neighborhood resource. The efficiency and low-cost of the site allows it to be a non-commercial, hobby-like project.
From the start, the tagline has been News & Views for Boston’s North End & Waterfront Community. It sums up our commitment to the neighborhood to provide a platform for community news. The North End neighborhood is the core of our coverage area. I consider the waterfront to be both a subset and extension of the North End. Thus, “Waterfront” remains prominent in the title as well.
“Views” can mean opinions and commentaries or the iconic and aerial photos that have served the site well as banners and logos in the past. The new website style enhances the photo-journalism character of NorthEndWaterfront.com through the featured photo slider with big, bold images as part of articles and galleries.
Many thanks to North Ender, Matt Black, of 100K Design for his work on creating the logo. His clever design and inspirational ideas helped capture and translate the message. The impetus came from neighbor, Meghan Warner Denenberg, and I appreciate her push to take on the creation of a logo. Most importantly, thank you to the readers of NorthEndWaterfront.com for the constant support that you have shown for this project.
Matt Conti, Editor
NorthEndWaterfront.com
Love the new logo. Matt Black did a good job on this.
Brilliantly ties in the living history of this neighborhood.