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City of Bend previews refreshed brand and redesigned website to simplify access and boost outreach
Summary
Bend's communications staff showed a refreshed logo, colors and a WordPress-based website that reduces content clutter and emphasizes search and accessibility; staff said the site supports CCAP outreach and will launch in January.
Renee Mitchell, the city’s communications and engagement officer, told the Environmental and Climate Committee on Monday that Bend will roll out a modest brand refresh and a reworked city website in January to make information more accessible and to better support climate outreach.
Mitchell said the effort aims to "humanize the city" by simplifying language, avoiding acronyms and showing people doing the work. "We want to prioritize people-centered communication," she said, and presented the tagline the team plans to use: "1 Bend built together." The visual changes include a slightly bolder wordmark, a warmer color palette drawn from local landscapes and a circular motif the team calls the "bend bug."
Jacob Riggle, the city’s UX designer, described the decision to replatform to WordPress and the usability goals behind the redesign. "In 2024, we got nearly 1,600,000 views to our site," Riggle said, arguing that a smaller set of clearer pages and better search will help residents find transactional services such as bill payment, permits and service requests more quickly. Staff said they reduced roughly 1,000 pages to about 700 during content cleanup.
The redesign emphasizes accessibility standards and site search. Presenters said the new platform will better support WCAG 2.1 AA criteria and allow a more prominent search interface, top-level "services" and a new "guides" section for common processes such as ADU permitting.
Committee members asked whether the city’s climate pages were ready for a preview (staff said not yet) and raised questions about linking to external resources. The city attorney and communications staff described a cautious approach: link to formal partners, maintain monthly monitoring of external content, and develop a vetting process to avoid implying city endorsement of third-party materials. "We don't want to share a lot of external links just because then we... need to monitor those pages on a monthly basis," Mitchell said.
Staff said the new site will be launched in January and that the communications team will continue to work with the ECC on CCAP-related outreach, including a potential sustainability guide and integration of climate materials into the new content structure.
The committee did not take formal action; staff said they would return with deeper previews and opportunities for ECC input once content migration is further along.
