New logo created for a memory

Photo

By Harold Gwin

YOUNGSTOWN — Idora Park may be long gone, but for a few short weeks, it’s memory was alive in some city school students who never had a chance to visit the amusement center.

The students in Kathy Duraney’s graphic-communications class at Choffin Career & Technical Center rose to the challenge of creating a new logo for the park, even though it closed 25 years ago.

“Most of them didn’t know Idora Park. Their parents did, but they didn’t,” Duraney said.

The exercise started with a telephone call from Richard Scarsella, a teacher at Chaney High School and chairman of the William Holmes McGuffey Historical Society, who suggested the logo-design contest as a class project, Duraney said.

Scarsella came to the class with a 72-minute video about Idora as well as a book depicting the park’s history from its opening in 1899 to its close in 1984.

The students were then challenged to design an updated park logo and spent about two and one-half weeks on the effort, Duraney said.

There’s a whole generation of people in the Mahoning Valley with no memory of Idora Park, Scarsella said.

The designs were unveiled Wednesday as Scarsella visited the class again to pick the top design.

“Every one of these would be more than appropriate,” Scarsella said as he examined the students’ work laid out on a table in the graphic-arts lab. “These are really all excellent. There is so much talent here.”

“When you think of Idora Park, you definitely think of food,” he said, noting that many of the designs incorporated food that was found at the park — from french fries to cotton candy. Others featured on some of the amusement rides at the park.

“This made history come alive,” said Renee English, Choffin’s marketing coordinator. The project focused on a 1899-2009 theme and involved 17 students, she said.

In the end, Scarsella picked the original designed done by junior student Jessica Hall that depicted the words, “Let the memories live on” above a row of cotton candy servings.

Hall said she did some research on the park before starting her design and was impressed with the colors and food items used in past park advertisements.

She opted for cotton candy, and, after some redesign, incorporated six colors in her logo, she said.

The colors weren’t lost on Scarsella, who noted they made Hall’s effort stand out.

Her design will be presented to the McGuffey Historical Society board of directors and placed in the society’s archives, he said, adding that Hall will receive a monetary stipend for her work.

She wasn’t the only winner. Everyone in the class shared an edible prize, as Scarsella also brought a cake for the students to share.

gwin@vindy.com