DETROIT LAKES
— New banners will soon grace the light poles lining Detroit Lakes’ downtown streets, as the Detroit Lakes Arts and Culture Commission finalized plans for the banners’ design at a special meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 5.
The street banner designs have gone through several iterations over the course of the past year, as concerns over the designs’ wording, resistance to fading in the sun and composition were debated by commission members.
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The banners, which are being sponsored by advertisers in a joint project between the Detroit Lakes Tribune and the city, will have an abstract design that mirrors one on a monolith sign that stands on West Lake Drive, directly across from the sailboat sculpture at the entrance to the Detroit Lakes City Park.
According to City Administrator Kelcey Klemm, more of these monolith-style signs are slated to be installed as part of the multi-phase West Lake Drive project.
The abstract, stained glass effect of the banner design, which will be overlaid on a vibrant blue, gradient background, was landed on after several more structured designs were debated and ultimately discarded as being not quite right for this particular project.
Contributed / Arts and Culture Commission
One of the possible designs was to use random photographs of Detroit Lakes scenes, which Klemm discouraged, stating that such “busy” content on the banners would fade to the point where it would be nearly indistinguishable from the background in a few years. To illustrate his point, one of the old 150th-anniversary banners was unveiled at the meeting, with the colors so faded that the original dark blue background now appears to be gray.
“The more abstract we can get with this (design), the better it will live,” said arts commission member Emma Tomb, with several members nodding in agreement.
The banners will be printed on both sides, with one side containing the words “Detroit Lakes” printed along the vertical edge on the left. The other side of the banner will contain either the word “Welcome,” or its Ojibwe equivalent, “Boozhoo,” and the side of the banner facing forward will be alternated from pole to pole.
