Main Street Ravenna President Chelsea Gregor’s logo design will be seen for the City will be seen throughout Ravenna in the coming months. After collaborating with Service Director Tim Contant to promote a two-week logo design contest, the City announced in a press release on March 27 that Gregor submitted the winning logo.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” Gregor told The Weekly Villager on April 2. “It is something that is so unexpected and became a reality. I just can’t help but say if you try and try at something, you never know what is going to happen so how lucky am I that my design gets to go down in history.”
As the President of Main Street Ravenna, Gregor was prohibited from participating in the selection process. Her logo will be placed on city banners and light poles throughout the City. The design will also be available for businesses and residents as the City will create commemorative stickers that they can put on their doors and windows.
Other organizations will also be allowed to use Gregor’s design to celebrate the City’s 225th anniversary this summer. Gregor’s logo also be incorporated in Main Street Ravenna’s Ravenna-Opoly Game Board.
Gregor said she wanted to use different elements when designing her logo but also wanted to keep it simple and classic, using red and blue as the primary colors, which are Ravenna’s colors but also carry a patriotic theme.
“I felt the stars were just a nice touch,” she added. “Ravenna is doing great things and it is almost reaching for the stars and I thought it was a nice sentiment.”
All logos that were submitted were done anonymously and Mayor Frank Seman personally picked the five logos he considered to be the best. Main Street Ravenna and the Chamber of Commerce collaborated to pick the winning logo.
For Gregor, it is a culmination of just how much Ravenna has become a second home to her since beginning her work in the City four years ago.
“I am very excited,” Gregor added. “It is so surreal. I am still very surprised that I won but it is going to be very exciting to see what I did come to life.”
Having only moved to Portage County in 2012, Gregor acknowledged she did not know a lot about Ravenna before she started working there and most of what she heard did not paint Ravenna in a favorable light. It was only when she started working as a Clerk of Council for the city did she realize what Ravenna offered.
“The people are so wonderful,” she noted. “They really have a great community spirit. It was just this perception that it was not nice so when I started working here, a lot of people were perpetuating a bad stereotype.”
When Gregor began working as a Clerk of Council, she also volunteered with Main Street Ravenna and in only two years she became President.
Gregor said that she had never been on a board before and felt intimidated when she was first elected as President but quickly adjusted.
“It was very satisfying to see how much I could contribute positively to the organization, so it was just amazing to see that I had become President in such a short amount of time,” she said. “I had committed a lot of time and effort to that.”
Gregor is in her second year as President and at the end of the yearshe will step down because Main Street Ravenna only allows its Presidents’ term to last two years.
Since joining Main Street Ravenna, Gregor has seen the City undergo a revitalization through several projects such as building murals and parks.
Gregor noted that contrary to what people may have heard about Ravenna, the city is experiencing significant economic growth.
“We have grown a lot as a city,” she added. “There is a lot of economic development and I think people are understanding that a downtown area is few and far between. You are not going to get that in larger cities.. There are a lot of people that are caring, wanting to revitalize the community so there is a lot of effort and positive movement happening.”
In only four years, Gregor has played a significant part in becoming part of the solution by contributing the winning logo to celebrate Ravenna’s 225 years of history.
