The Flathead County Library Board of Trustees followed through on a promise to pay for a graphic design firm to create a new logo for the library by voting on Thursday to contract with SnowGhost Design in Kalispell.  

The board previously asked for submissions from the community for a logo, stopping short of approving designs at the June meeting after attendees asked them to consider paying a professional to tackle the project.  

The board’s public relations committee sent out requests for proposals in July and received four bids from graphic design companies.  

In February the library board decided to revert the library’s name back to Flathead County Libraries after operating for roughly a decade under ImagineIF Libraries. The name change has meant a change in branding, including a new logo.  

SnowGhost bid the project at $1,300 with a plan to complete the logo by Oct. 14-16.  

Big Mountain Digital submitted a bid of $825 with completion by Sept. 1, Flathead Marketing and Design bid $1,800 to create the logo with a six-to-eight-week turnaround time and Ricci Gertz Design bid $500 to turn around the design in two weeks.  

Vice Chair Carmen Cuthbertson said she and Trustee Heidi Roedel spoke with all of the companies but ultimately recommended SnowGhost for their bid of $1,300, which includes a $200 discount for nonprofits that was offered to the library.  

At the recommendation, Trustee Doug Adams made a motion to accept the bid. He said he’s worked with SnowGhost previously and enjoyed the company’s designs.  

“I believe they were not just professional, but I was just tickled, slapped to death with how they listened to what I had to say, and then they came up with something that I would not have thought of,” Adams said. 

Roedel said the company was given the library’s branding guidelines but was left with ample creative freedom to come up with the new logo.  

Responding to a public comment at Thursday’s meeting which questioned why trustees wanted to spend money on a logo, Adams said they were honoring what community members at other meetings requested. 

“I'm sure there are some on the board who don't think that a logo is necessary and some that think that it is, but the bottom line is we were listening to the majority of the people who came to comment about it.” Adams said. “We've shown that we would listen to what people were asking us for their library.” 

Cuthbertson said it was a previous public comment from Maggie Davis that swayed her opinion on the matter, when Davis suggested that a more professional logo design would help bring in future donors for facilities projects. Trustee Jane Wheeler also supported the decision to contract out for a new logo design, saying that “if we are going to do it, we need to do it well.”  

Adam's motion, seconded by Chair David Ingram, passed unanimously.  

Also at the meeting, Director Teri Dugan went over the name change timeline. Many items have been crossed off the to-do list, such as changing the name with the Montana State Library, vendors and utilities. But, a lot of branding revolves around the logo, and therefore can’t be changed until a new one is selected, Dugan said. 

Despite this, she said the library is still on track to hit goals for the name change, which has an overall two-year timeline. Some of the goals listed within the first year are implementing new email signatures, changing voicemails, designing new letterheads for correspondence and changing social media sites, among others.  

The next library board meeting is 9 a.m. Sept. 26 in the South Campus Conference Room, 1035 1st Ave West in Kalispell. 

Reporter Taylor Inman can be reached at 406-758-4433 or by emailing tinman@dailyinterlake.com.