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A New Look for the Republic

Posted by bob on Jun 19th 2014

When you come into one of our stores this summer, we will hand you a catalog with a new logo on the cover. When you look at our new logo, you might not see Taiwan, but that is where this logo started. Last year, I went to Taiwan to see how specialty food companies were packaging and labeling their products. I wanted to get ideas from one of the most advanced countries in the packaging industry. Wow, did I learn a lot! From my first day there, I saw the need to update and refresh Cherry Republic. Screen Shot 2014-06-18 at 4.46.54 PM And the first thing to update was the logo. Above is the new. Below is the old. cherry_republic_logo As you can see from this logo that’s pretty much unchanged since 1989, it’s been a great run, but we need to freshen things up. The old logo hasn't gone far, as traces of it can still be seen in our new logo which will last into the next decade. And that's a good thing because we cherish our heritage. Our new logo represents Cherry Republic and our relationship with northern Michigan in a nutshell (errr, a shield). The core values we live by each day are boldly surrounding a black bear, the symbol of northern Michigan, the place we hold so dear. The new logo will be eased into use, beginning with catalogs and digital applications like the website, then move to products and labels. A logo update isn't the only change we've made. While most of our changes won't be seen until later in the year, you will notice some updates in the Great Hall in Glen Arbor. The first major change we are testing are some new display hutches that have four sides instead of just two. We are pretty excited because our products display much better in these hutches. And a key value of ours is to showcase the almighty cherry as the greatest of all the fruits. We think these new hutches do just that. DSC_3918 Well, once we got started on this update, what else can we do but improve our tasting tables. We wanted something dramatically different from the rest of the fixtures in our Glen Arbor store, so our prestigious cherry samples would be noticed. I think we succeeded, but time will tell. DSC_3811 DSC_3915 One other improvement to our store is our t-shirt display. This was nearly an afterthought and it just might be the most important display we’ve created this year. Don’t those shirts look clean and great in those nicely organized shelves? DSC_3931 Last, but certainly not least, this year's group of Cherry Ambassadors is one of our best yet. Andrew Kaplowitz and Merran Waller are just two of our Ambassadors that are ready to greet you, answer your questions and help make your Cherry Republic experience fun and memorable. DSC_3948 We look forward to seeing you Up North this summer.