The News Tribune

For the first time in 36 years, the Port of Tacoma is updating its public identity.

The port, which has just unveiled a new strategic plan, is discarding its flag-like, red, white and blue logo and replacing it with a logo that features a series of intersecting curved lines.

Along with the new visual identity, the port has adopted a new motto: People. Partnership. Performance.

The new logo, which retains the red and blue colors of the 1976-vintage logo, is the product of several months’ work by a Seal Beach, Calif., branding consultant, brandStrata, and port public and community relations experts.

Tara Mattina, the port’s communications director, said the new visual symbol for the port signifies in part the fresh approach the port is taking in its new strategic plan to expand business.

The symbol and its accompanying motto emphasize what the port sees as its advantages, hard-working people, an uncommon alliance of labor and business, and land available for expansion that yields results for port customers.

“The arcs and connection points of our new logo symbolize our refocused mission to deliver prosperity by connecting customers, cargo and community with the world. With an emphasis on connections – the critical human and intermodal connections – that make our port, and community, unique,” the port said in a brochure that explains the port’s new focus.

That focus includes not only increasing the existing container business but also diversifying to include more bulk and breakbulk cargoes.

The Port of Tacoma commission and port chief executive John Wolfe launched the new strategic direction after the recession heavily wounded the port’s existing business.

Mattina said the port had planned to substitute the new logo for the old gradually as signs and vehicles were repainted and repaired and new brochures and stationery were replenished.

But with the port’s recruitment of three new shipping lines, the Grand Alliance, the pace of updating port information has redoubled, said Mattina.

The branding firm produced about eight or 10 initial designs, said Mattina, and a panel of port executives picked the final design.

Many West Coast ports in recent times have developed new branding strategies, said Mattina, to reflect changing times at the ports.

West Coast ports are facing new challenges as the Panama Canal is widened and Canadian and Mexican ports vie for their business.