Amesbury, Massachusetts

3 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3 renovating and readapting the buildings into maker spaces for the next generation of manufacturers. The city’s new branding initiative was a way to unite residents and business owners and showcase Amesbury for the great place that it is. “We have a lot of folks here who are manufacturing things. They are making history here and we want to keep them here with their employees and their families so they can enjoy this great place to live,” Gove says. Along with the city’s fresh new tagline is a new vibrantly-colored logo, designed by Magnifico Design out of Newburyport, MA. The logo features a bright sunburst, red vertical lines depicting the mill buildings and smokestack, green lines for the city’s farmland and rolling hills, and a flowing blue river right through the middle. “One of the things I love about the logo is that people see different things,” Gove explains. “There are a lot of hidden messages behind it.” One such thing is the sun, which was deliberately kept in outline so it would remind viewers of a carriage wheel and pay tribute to the city’s history in carriage manufacturing. The way the lines were drawn are an homage to the city being a ‘maker’ place. Gove says it was made to look as if you could pick it right up off the page and tinker with it. Even the logo’s colors were chosen specifically for their vibrancy. “We got a lot of feedback saying that Amesbury is a very vibrant community,” Gove adds. “It’s really AT A GLANCE AMESBURY, MASSACHUSETTS WHAT: A city of 17,000 with a small town feel WHERE: At the mouth of the Merrimack River, near the New Hampshire border WEBSITE: www.amesburyma.gov Photo Courtesy of Wendy Bush