The Lamar County School District will soon feature a fresh look, as members of the district’s board of trustees recently approved the adoption of a new district logo and colors to represent its 17 campuses throughout the county.
The change was unanimously approved at this month’s board meeting, where district superintendent Steven Hampton presented a slideshow featuring the changes. The discussion for the measure began in February 2022, as part of the district’s new five-year strategic plan that was adopted this month.
“As we went through (that) process and we started talking about the district and looking at things, it really made us take a deep dive into our district,” Hampton said. “We felt like it was a good time to explore the options of coming up with a different logo for our district.”
The previous logo featured a design of a child reaching for a star, highlighted with a green background and a yellow ring around the perimeter of the graphic. The words “Lamar County School District” was featured around the circumference of the logo, with some variations also displaying the text “Empowering Learners.”
The new design features a 90-degree letter “L” running from the top left corner to the bottom right corner of the logo. In the top right corner of the logo is an arrow that points up and to the right.
“What we asked for, moving forward, was something that was different, something that was simple but strong,” Hampton said. “The simplicity was something that we asked for, and (the designers) did a good job.
“The ‘L’ is the base and foundation of Lamar County. (The arrow) is a wayfinder that’s pointing in a direction going upwards, so it’s basically Lamar County moving forward and moving up. I look at it, being a (former math teacher), as a plane with your X and Y axis, and we’re moving up and forward.”
After deciding on the redesigned logo, officials then set their sights on the district’s primary colors, which were green and gold. The new concept features a primary color of what Hampton described as “burnt orange,” with a white or grey background.
Hampton said the gold had been originally placed in the logo during its inception because at the time, all the district’s high schools featured that palette in their color schemes. That changed, however, when the district added Lumberton schools to its ranks a few years ago.
“(Lumberton doesn’t) have gold, so we thought that would be an opportunity to kind of move away from that gold color,” Hampton said. “It was one of those things where we looked at a million different color schemes – with this, that and the other – and we kind of landed on this burnt orange.
“It kind of gives it a little accent, a little ‘pop.’”
The new design was overseen by Noble Motive, a local graphic and web design company headed by art director Paul Tynes, his wife Raven Tynes – who serves as project manager – and graphic designer Leanna Manning. Noble Motive has done work in the past for companies such as Verge Entrance Solutions, The Midtowner, Purple Parrot, American Concrete Products and Highball Lanes, among others.
“One thing I like about (these new designs) is that we’re not going to take the identity away from our schools,” Hampton said. “Our schools are still going to have their identities, but we want to make sure there’s somewhere on there where we can easily (note) that they’re part of Lamar County schools.”
Hampton said a final digital version of the new logo and colors is not yet available.
