On Feb. 25 at 7:15 p.m., there was a session for the public about downtown Farmville and what will come out of it.
Aaron Arnett, city planner for Arnett Muldrow and Associates, a city planning/identity and branding firm based in Greensboro, S.C., said, “This particular project is to come up with a brand identity for downtown and recommendations on how we can build a system to more effectively promote downtown and market downtown to various markets and users that we have in the community.”
Arnett said the firm is in town for three days to gather input to spark their creative process.
“We have to understand what you feel about this community before we can start to translate that into a graphic,” Arnett said.
Arnett added, “When we talk about creating a brand for downtown, we are not just talking about creating a logo; certainly that is something that you see and may be even something that we start with, but it is really an expanded system of graphic identity, brand extension, marketing strategies that help you build this identity for your community.”
Arnett Muldrow and Associates asked the audience a series of questions regarding what the town thinks about Farmville. The first question they asked was, “What other downtowns do they like, and why do they like them?”
Audience members liked Charlottesville, Chapel Hill, Fairfax and Greensboro, N.C. Many people in the audience explained they like downtown areas with different things to do such as bars, shops and coffee shops. They liked how other downtown areas have places where
The next question they asked was more directed toward Farmville. “If you were to create a postcard for Farmville, what one image would you put on that postcard?” they asked.
The audience started naming off things that Farmville is known for such as The Heart of Virginia Festival, High Bridge, Crute Stage, the Farmers Market, Green Front Furniture, Longwood University, The Rotunda and the food of downtown.
The next question was, “Where would you make sure a tour would go?” They replied with High Bridge Trail, the Farmers Market, the courthouse, The LCVA, Longwood, Library, State parks and the golf course by Hampden-Sydney College. The following question was, “You are designing a tagline for the sign of Farmville. Welcome to Farmville. What’s the tagline?”
The attendees replied with, “It’s not just a game on the Internet,"
“The real heart of Virginia,” “Fall in love with Farmville,” “Stay a while,” “Bridging our historic past with a glorious future,” “Welcome home,” “America’s Crucible.”
“What are those unique stories, local heroes, that you have here in Farmville, that people outside wouldn’t know unless you were to tell them?” was the next question asked.
The audience replied with Barbra Johns, who was the high school student that led the Moton School lock out, the civil war stories, Captain Farmville, Civil Rights hero, Dr. King and James W. Jordan.
They asked these series of questions to get a better understanding of what Farmville is and how it is represented. They also want to know what the community wants from the downtown, and what they would like to see differently within the community.
The last question was, “If you could change one thing in downtown Farmville, what would it be?” The first thing the audience said was store hours because everybody wants the hours to be longer. Then they said restaurants and more foot traffic.
Helen Person, executive director of Downtown Farmville, said, “Part ofwhatwearetryingtodoistobe able hear across the whole spectrum of people in Farmville. What do they see in Farmville? Who are we? And who are we trying to be? Where are we going?
Because heritage tourism is such a huge part of who we are, we have to find a way to be able to, in only very short words and an image, relay that to the public.
"Hopefully, out of what we are doing, it will just jump out and emerge and be like, that is really cool, and that’s who we are. It will tell our story very quickly.”
Presenter Aaron Arnett talks to some of the Farmville residents about how to make downtown Farmville "the downtown."
