By Jim Johns
RVA banners hang from lampposts. Stickers are on bikes, cars, and garbage trucks. “RVA” is etched on wine glasses and printed on cycling jerseys, t-shirts, and hoodies. And there are RVA logos recreated on tote bags and handcrafted signs.
The sheer volume of RVA branded gear everywhere you look says it all: The experiment to create a stronger and more engaging identity worked. In fact, it was a runaway success.
Two years ago, Venture Richmond, the city, a handful of creative advertising shops, and students huddled together to develop a stronger identity for the city. The result was an open-source design available to be personalized and utilized by everyone across the region.
“It’s been an energizer for people in Central Virginia,” says John Moeser, a senior fellow at the University of Richmond’s Bonner Center for Civic Engagement. “We haven’t had an identification that’s been this popular. Thousands of people are choosing to put it on their cars. It’s been exciting and pumped us up a bit. We’re far better than what we thought and it’s about time we recognized what a great place this is.”
The benefits of the campaign and its success, according to Aaron Gibson, a graphics designer, and owner of 903 Creative, is rooted in the fact that it allows people to express themselves and still be a member of the community.
“Before (the campaign), having Richmond pride was an idea you could talk about with friends or strangers. Now we have something visual and tangible,” explains Gibson. “Everyone still has their own agenda and preferences, but we all have this identity. It’s more than a fun bumper sticker.”
The celebrated RVA campaign is completely open for personalization and customization to anyone who wants to show their Richmond pride. The open source allowed Gibson and RVANews, for example, to design and create a tote bag, wine tumblers, and more with the RVA theme. In designing for the tote bag, Gibson says that he focused on the theme of commerce and expressed it by re-imagining the RVA logo as store sign lettering and neon signs.
“We have this design component that is common and appears in so many places that it gives the personality of Richmond more of a face,” explains Gibson. “The benefit of (the campaign) is that it strengthens us as a community. The way it was embraced, it’s obvious that people were yearning for it, even if they weren’t asking for it.”
Charles Berger applied his creative energy to the RVA campaign when a hand injury prevented him from working as a tattoo artist at Heroes and Ghosts in Carytown.
“I was sitting at my desk, looking at my RVA sticker on my toolbox and it hit me,” says Berger of his idea to make custom RVA signs out of birch wood. “My buddy Josh (fellow tattoo artist and co-worker Josh Richey) was with me, and since I couldn’t actually cut with the jig saw, he agreed to cut them out and I painted them.”
They started selling the wooden RVA signs to other businesses in Carytown, custom painting them with the businesses’ own colors or logos.
“Word got out and we’re getting individual personal orders, most of those are gifts,” Berger notes.
The campaign, and what it represents, is a far cry from the feelings Moeser encountered when he came to Richmond in 1970, starting his career as a member of the Urban Studies and Planning Department at Virginia Commonwealth University. He describes the difference between then and now as a “quantum leap between a time of feudalism to a time of unity.”
A common bumper sticker at that time featured a little red schoolhouse, which was a symbol of resistance and protests against desegregation. Another touch point in time between the red school house and the RVA brand was a series of bumper stickers sporting parochial messages like, “West End – By Invitation Only” or “The Fan – Who Invited You?”
“I’m in awe and thrilled with this 180-degree turn,” says Moeser. He credits the welcome change to the growth of the population and the creative economy. “I’m glad to witness this before I die,” says Moeser.
For the uninitiated, you can personalize your own RVA logo by visiting RVACreates.com/Generator. Whatever you create with the RVA logo and wherever you place it, be proud of your community because you helped make it.