‘Logo gate’: How ‘engaged’ are city council members? What they said.
A rebranding process for the City of Myrtle Beach sparked questions about how engaged City Council members are with initiatives.
Following a city discussion this past Tuesday about the city’s rebranding process and potential logo mock-ups, residents took to Facebook to share their feedback.
A city government Facebook post created last week that starts with “WHOA! Talk about misinformation...” garnered 362 comments as of Tuesday morning.
The Sun News was the first to report on early versions of a new city logo.
“The city’s Facebook post addressing logo misinformation was not written and posted in response to [The Sun News] article,” Communications and Creative Services Director Meredith Denari wrote in an Aug. 11 email.
The term “logo gate” was coined recently by City Councilman Bill McClure. The council member posted on “Bill McClure Myrtle Beach City Council Member” Facebook page a statement in response to the public criticism about the logo mockups presented to council. As well as the lack of local input in the decision making process.
McClure wrote that the rebranding process, which cost $78,045.78 to date, was discussed publicly for the last three to six months and included in the Friday Fax, a city-run weekly newsletter that contains upcoming meeting agendas and announcements.
“The real story here isn’t about secret processes, the logo design, or even the cost. It’s about City Council—relying [too] much on staff —failing to stay engaged and ask substantive, quality questions along the way,” McClure wrote in his post. “That failure rests with all of us on council… myself included.”
Denari previously told The Sun News that this past Tuesday’s workshop was the third time she gave a presentation to city council about the rebranding process.
“Over a six month period, this has been a project that has been done in public, the total cost, part of it, was discussed in bits and pieces,” McClure said over the phone on Monday. “And as I said in my post at the end of the day, this one falls on city council in my viewpoint, and that includes me. We just relied on staff too much and we didn’t ask some of the quality questions. “
What do fellow council members say about their involvement?
The response to Sun News questions about the council’s involvement or lack thereof was not answered by all members. Outside of McClure, only two responded to multiple requests for interviews.
The two additional council members that spoke to The Sun News offered up the same response, variations of “everyone has an opinion.”
When explicitly asked about McClure’s statement that the backlash was the fault of the City Council’s lack of engagement, Smith said, “everybody’s going to have their opinion.”
Smith did not push back on criticism of council members’ involvement, but he did speak in support of the logo and rebranding efforts.
“I think this is a great initiative to give the city a logo instead of just a seal, something that can represent the current city and the future of the city,” he said by phone Monday afternoon. “Whereas a seal might be something that is just kind of a forever thing.”
When asked about council’s engagement through the process, Councilman Mike Chesnut also said, “everybody’s entitled to their opinion.”
Chesnut said over the phone on Monday afternoon that he hadn’t received a single call from residents about the proposed logo since it was discussed.
“I mean, everybody’s entitled to their opinion, yeah, I put my two cents in, and so that’s all I could do,” he said.
Council members Mike Lowder, Jackie Hatley and Debbie Conner did not respond to calls, text messages and emails prior to publication.
How other city’s have handled rebranding and new logos
Other U.S. cities have gone through the process of rebranding and creating a new logo to varying levels of success.
The most successful story is the launch of the “I Heart NY” logo, which was first used to represent New York City and New York state in 1977. The logo quickly helped revive the city’s tourism and became an internationally recognized icon.
In 2022, the City of Florence, Ala. spent $25,000 rebranding their new city logo to “F!”. After the logo was unveiled, local residents launched a petition to get it changed back and gathered more than 9,500 signatures.
According to reporting at the time of the logo launch, Florence city leaders pushed back on claims that they didn’t consider hiring a local firm to do the work, saying a request for proposals was issued but no local companies responded.
Local TV station WAAY 31 wrote in an article that the city stood behind the process of their new logo and its rollout despite the public backlash.
In 2024, the City of Columbia, SC paid $69,300 in total to a South Carolina-based agency, Crawford, for the redesign and workshops around the process of their new logo and its implementation.
The rebranding process timeline & what documents we asked for
Here’s a general timeline of the rebranding in the context of other city milestones:
1938 – Myrtle Beach incorporated as a town. 1976 – City seal created. 2024 – Request for proposal issued for rebranding project. 2025 – City council members first see new logo concepts.
When asked to confirm how many agendas and Friday Faxes mentioned the rebranding, Denari sent a link to the Friday Fax archives and wrote that she’s discussed the rebranding process four times, “if you include the Budget Retreat.”
The Sun News has also requested the following documents from the city on Friday, Aug. 8 via the Freedom of Information Act to answer more questions about the process.
- The proposal submitted by the Zimmerman Agency
- Any signed contract related to this project
- Any nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) for this project
- Communications with the eight local marketing firms (and their responses), as well as the rationale for their selection
- The grading rubric, evaluation criteria or scoresheet used for awarding this contract
