OROVILLE — When Hardy Lahn left Germany eight years ago, he found a home in Oroville, and saw great potential beneath its apparent state.
He is a visionary of sorts, and he makes good money doing so with his international offices in brand consulting. He’s worked with the likes of Volkswagen, Mercedes Benz and many governing municipalities — as well as seven local Oroville businesses, including The Union Restaurant.
And while he typically works with businesses of grand scale, he heard that the city was rebranding its logo last year — so he took an unpaid opportunity to unearth in Oroville what he says “is already there.”
“My whole work, my whole life as a designer or a brand consultant was, I take something that has a hidden value, and I try to find the value,” Lahn said. ‘I saw Oroville, OK it has a historic town. It has issues … If there is a foundation, but it’s hidden, you just have to dig a little bit deeper and unveil the quality or the value that is there.”
When Oroville’s rebranding campaign in 2023 returned with the first iteration of Oroville’s rebrand, city councilors Shawn Webber and Scott Thomson took issue with some elements including the logo and tagline, “Belong. Along our water,” which has since been scrapped.
Webber sought to give the public more opportunity for input, which resulted in three public surveys and many meetings to decide on the final product.
Lahn said he heard about the logo redesign from Webber, and felt responsible to give it a fair and honest review — given his role as an instructor at University of California Berkeley Extension and the Art Institute of California.
“I saw this logo. As a responsible person I feel responsible for the city, and as a teacher of Berkeley, I say ‘Hey, just let me tell you, if you do this, what is the consequence?’ Just like an evaluation,” Lahn said.
Lahn said what makes a good logo is its ability to be recognized anywhere from on a pencil to a billboard and be distinguishable in black and white. He said many of the initial logo’s elements failed to be usable.
In surveys, Oroville residents voted on elements they felt represented the city, including the area’s waterways.
At a final community meeting about the logo, Lahn presented his own version of the final result using his experience in branding — making the river and mountains appear realistic, emphasizing “Oroville California” and applying the golden ratio — and it ended up being a unanimous decision by vote.
“What the people decided is still alive. I didn’t want to fight the people and what they like. So I said, ‘OK, let’s go over here and just make it a little more usable.” Now identity: you have the Table Mountain, The Feather River,” visible, Lahn said.
It’s extreme for a point, but he recalls his controversial guest lecture at the Art Institute of California, in which he addressed the power of a logo and what it can do when comparing Apple Inc., the Catholic Church and Hitler with the Third Reich.
“I called it the three biggest brands. You can make people happy with a good brand and you can get thousands of customers; and at the same time you can kill millions of people with a brand. Because I wanted to teach my students how big our responsibility is.”
For Lahn, the logo was a personal responsibility as part of the Oroville community, as is his active work in branding Oroville businesses. He’s worked with the Union Restaurant, Coyote Restaurant, StoneSoup Acupuncture, Shake Tea Boba Tea, Ville Vino Winebar, Onflume Workspace and the Oroville Chamber of Commerce.
“I’m part of the community; that’s my main interest in all of this. I have costumes in Europe and I help startup businesses. All the little businesses; that’s not for making money.”
He also takes no credit for the logo; that “It’s our logo … so many people worked on the whole process. I just collected the good ideas.”
“Maybe the whole process of: people don’t like it, then they decided on something — It was necessary to bring the people together and engage them. Because it’s their town and the city logo is the face of the city in the end. That’s what you show to tourists, to investors…” Lahn said.
Lahn said he looks forward to making downtown a better place, and he plans on opening up a store later this year in the city.
“There’s so much going on right here,” he said. “I think there’s big, big potential here in Oroville.”
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