Leadership Denton—it’s been involved in the genesis of the Denton business community for over 30 years, it’s built leaders large and small all across our community, it’s spawned amazing projects ranging in size and scope that have helped Denton become what it is today, and it’s an integral part of who we are.
And our very own Randi Skinner was a member of the 2015/2016 graduating class!
Leadership Denton is about more than simply developing the next generation of leaders, movers, shakers, and doers in Denton County—it’s about serving the community directly.
Denton is growing at an astounding rate, and we’re learning every day that our little community is starting to grow up in a very big way.
It’s important to stay on top of it, to nurture that growth, to provide the services, infrastructure, and support that a growing Denton needs, and this year’s Leadership Denton class understood the needs of the community intuitively…
And they wanted to help.
Tech Companies in Denton—On the Precipice of Growth
Every year since 1984, the Leadership Denton class has wrestled with the problems that the Denton community faces.
This year, it was all about technology.
More and more businesses are turning to Denton as their base of operations, and tech companies especially are eyeing Denton as a unique location to build the next hot tech startup.
There’s already a strong tech presence in Denton—the core is there…
It just needs a little help to grow.
That’s where Leadership Denton class of 2015/2016 comes in.
An Idea—A Tech Council in Denton
While Denton already has a lot of amazing stuff going on in the tech sector, like Tech Mill and the UNT Innovation Center, it needs a little push, something to give it some oomph.
An idea came to the rising stars of this year’s Leadership Denton—a tech council of tech savvy leaders in the community to advise the city and county on tech, to suggest steps towards building a diverse, active, and robust tech community.
While this year’s Leadership Denton class did not outline the specifics of the Tech Council, they did come up with a vision—what could such a council do to change the landscape of the Denton community for the better? How could it spur business growth, how could it bring in jobs?
How could we do what Austin, TX and Boulder, CO have done and create an atmosphere conducive to growth?
How can we make tech happen in Denton?
They even created a website, logo, and branding to go along with the idea (well, mayyyyyyybe we helped just a little bit, but hey, that’s what marketing is all about—helping others! 🙂
Oh, and we might have done all that in about 24 hours 😛
Obviously we thought marketing first, but fortunately, Denton is a pretty cool place—and a lot of other people have been thinking about how to build other pieces of the puzzle.
Matching a Brand
One of the most enjoyable and challenging parts of this project was figuring out how to match the branding of some of the other players in the Denton Tech scene.
After all, one of the most important reasons for having a Tech Council in the first place is to get all the parts moving together in concert, working as one towards a larger goal.
Although obviously the Tech Council brand didn’t exist yet, we could think about important brand elements (colors, visual elements, logo, website) that would play a role of building that brand in the mind of the Denton community (and DFW at large).
We looked at a few big players in the tech arena in Denton, including Techmill and Stoke, a new co-working space in Denton, located in The Railyard, looking to bring in creative companies around a restaurant and nightlife scene.
We spent a lot of time thinking about how we could create branding elements that matched, augmented, and supplemented theirs, while staying true to the spirit of the Tech Council—a hub for all things tech in Denton.
We came up with this logo:
Pretty sweet huh? Just as those small circles orbit the iconic Denton Courthouse, the key players in the Denton tech scene orbit the Tech Council of Denton.
The colors reflect the colors being used by Techmill and the coworking space, Stoke, located in the Railyard, a color scheme the fine folks at Swash Labs came up with that we wanted to support.
The Beginning of Something Great
Now that the idea is out there, it’s up to the rest of Denton to take the lead. All Randi and the Leadership Denton Class of 2015/2016 could do was to lay the groundwork.
Now it’s time for the city to step up to the plate—we hope they do!
If you want to learn more about Leadership Denton, click here.
You can also watch the entire presentation about the Tech Council initiative here.
