Dozens of people gathered in Perkins Square in front of Akron Children’s hospital to close out the city’s year-long celebration of its bicentennial. As part of the ceremony, the city’s new logo was unveiled, intended as a visual representation of Akron’s past and future.
Dave Lieberth, executive secretary of the Akron Bicentennial Commission and president of the Akron History Center, told the audience of the vast history of the city, paying homage to its founders, General Simon Perkins and Paul Williams.
Perkins Square was the city’s original “Public Square” on the first plat created by Joshua Henshaw in the summer of 1825.
“Williams was actually Akron’s first real resident who owned one-third of the land on [the plat] and on Dec. 6 of 1825, that plat map was filed for record, and the plat included the town square,” Lieberth said.
A staff of three at Akron 200 put together all the bicentennial events over the year leading up to Saturday’s closing ceremony.
There were 253 events held, including 196 neighborhood events and 51 events in the concert series, said Mark Greer, executive director of Akron 200. “This has been quite a collection, making sure that we touch every corner of Akron, including all 24 Akron neighborhoods.”
After listeners had the opportunity to relish the city’s past, Akron’s new logo was unveiled.
New logo reflects community input from Akron residents
“Every element of this design is a direct result of the feedback received throughout this process, and we’re excited to give the city a logo they can be proud of,” Akron Mayor Shammas Malik said in a news release that was sent after the ceremonies.
Akronites wanted a logo they can see themselves in, something that represents the pride they have for their city, the mayor said. His hope is that the logo “can be a rallying point for our community.”
The city’s logo redesign process was announced by Malik last December — the now defunct rubberworker logo was created in 2023. The city’s official seal will stay the same.
The Akron and the Akron Bicentennial Committee formed a subcommittee in January. Then, the subcommittee issued a request for proposals in April for designers or firms who could do the design work.
In total, 21 proposals were submitted, with six proposals from Akron designers or companies, nine from Northeast Ohio communities and six from out of state.
The winner, Pritt Entertainment Group (PEG), was founded in 2008 by brothers Ryan and Jeffrey Pritt, with offices in downtown Akron.
A community-wide survey, also sent out in April, gathered information about how respondents felt about the city and elements they would like to see represented in the logo. It gathered a total of 5,735 data points from more than 2,000 respondents.
The subcommittee also convened several stakeholder engagement sessions made up of more than 40 Akron residents including “artists, business owners, high school students, seniors, non-profit leaders, City employees, and more” according to the release.
Based on the feedback, sixteen potential replacements were unveiled in mid-October, representing four versions of four different logos.
Concept 3 was the clear favorite, with more than twice as many respondents saying it was their preference. The subcommittee and the design team continued to refine the logo, shifting to a circular shape, using a different type style and adding in color, with a silhouette of a great blue heron and tree elements from Concept 4 added in.
What the new Akron logo represents
The primary colors of the new logo are blue and green — the color blue was the favorite choice based on community input — and it features “City of Akron Established 1825” in script tilted across the top. An iconic blimp, a nod to the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.’s history in the area, along with Akron’s past as the “Rubber Capital of the World,” hovers above a rendering of the city’s skyline.
Below the blimp to the left are two buckeye trees and at the bottom is a waterway with a great blue heron standing on the bank. The waterway represents the Cuyahoga River and the canal systems, along with the Indigenous people who used the waterways to travel by canoe.
“We’re not just doing this to do it. We’re not just doing this to check a box. We are studying and learning from our history as a way to learn lessons for what we want the future of Akron to be,” Malik said.
The city allocated $50,000 in the 2025 budget toward the design of the new logo – in the coming weeks, it will release a new branding guide. The logo will replace all of the digital uses of the rubberworker logo and incorporate it over time in physical media through attrition.