New logo recently unveiled for local school district

By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

The New York Mills School has been on a mission to adopt its own logo, totally unique to the district. The process started last school year, but the need for a new logo was realized a few years ago during a trip to the state football tournament.

“We went to the U.S. Bank Stadium for state football and if you don’t have your own trademarked logo associated with the school, they won’t put it up,” said NY Mills School Activities Director Matt Radniecki. “You need to have one set logo trademarked.”

A committee was formed and started meeting last fall to find a solution to the school’s branding predicament. Jaime Kopveiler, of Overflow Creative, was contracted to come up with a few designs for the committee to consider. By late April, two options for a new school logo were shared with the public on Facebook.

“There was a lot of discussion, it was really interesting,” said Radniecki. “We wanted something that was our own unique logo. Obviously, you look at other logos to get ideas, but we wanted to make ours unique, a little bit different. I think we have done that, it was developing our own uniqueness and our own emblem.”

Radniecki said that the two logo options had been shared with the public to vote on, but it was also shared with the student body as they wanted their input on the final decision as well.

“We tried to get our student body involved and they voted too,” said Radniecki. “That was used as a determining factor, that was part of it, looking at the results. The one we chose ended up with more likes with the public and the feedback we got from the student body.”

A final logo was approved during the past committee meeting in June and now final details are being voted on. These include slight modifications for different uses. The logo will grace the top of school letterhead as well as the front of many sports jerseys and extracurricular gear.

“We will use that as our main mascot,” said Radniecki. “But we’ll still be able to branch off a little bit, we’ll have a little flexibility. It was a lot more work than I realized.”

Kopveiler, who designed the logo, is a NY Mills native and is quite active in the community.

“I was so excited to be asked to be a part of this project,” she said. “Having graduated from NY Mills and having three kids currently attending school here, it’s a huge honor to play an integral role in creating the first official branding kit for the district.”

Overflow Creative, which Kopveiler owns and operates, was recommended to the committee and they contacted her about joining the project last year.

“We started the process with researching to be sure that we created a unique and identifiable look in a sea of high school and college branding,” said Kopveiler. “I then worked closely with the committee over several months to create and cull out several individual design concepts.”

While Kopveiler knows that not everyone can be won over with a single design, she hopes that her design will be something that will serve the school district and community for future generations. 

“Eventually, with the help of community input, we landed on what you see here,” she said. “I truly feel like we created a timeless, yet unique look that people will say, ‘that’s the New York Mills Eagles’ every time they see it. I’m really excited to see these elements put to use!”