Cornelius 2045

Vision & Action Plan

Client
City of Cornelius, Oregon

Year
2024

The Cornelius 2045 Vision and Action Plan is a 20-year strategic roadmap guiding the future growth and development of Cornelius, Oregon—a diverse community with a significant Latino population. This living document captures the collective vision of over 1,000 community members and serves as the foundation for City Council decision-making and future municipal initiatives.

My Role: As 3J Consulting’s lead designer, I developed a complete visual identity system and comprehensive suite of engagement materials that needed to resonate across Cornelius' diverse population, including targeted outreach to the Latino community.

Engaging a Diverse Community

Green infographic about languages in Cornelius, showing 46% speak Spanish and 52% only speak English.

Developing the branding for the Cornelius 2045 Vision project presented a unique challenge: How do you create a visual system that brings together a diverse community—including their nearly 50% Spanish-speaking population—around a shared vision for their city's future?

My process for starting the development of a brand for a project like this is always to learn what the community loves about their City. I don’t live in Cornelius or spend much time there, so I need to go to the experts to find out what things they believe make up Cornelius special. Luckily, the Vision process starts the same way! Prior to brand development, the project team did some light community engagement at farmers’ markets to ask them what they love about Cornelius. These engagement events left me with a stack of index cards that included things like the city’s parks, the library, farmers’ markets, and an emphasis on diversity and their strong sense of community. I knew that the project branding needed to capture Cornelius' character while remaining accessible across languages.

Child's drawing with the title 'The Diversity' written in red, featuring five stick figures in pink, green, blue, black, and orange.
Two children, a boy and a girl, are writing at a black table under a tent at an outdoor event. There are various supplies, baskets, and containers on the table, and a whiteboard behind them with notes and drawings. A woman stands nearby, and in the background, a banner reads "TOMORROW MAÑANA" with the logo "CORNELIUS."
Logo for Cornell US with a playground, trees, and buildings, and the words 'Mañana,' 'Tomorrow,' and 'Cornell US'.

Rather than design two separate versions of the logo in English and Spanish, I worked with the City to design one logo that could communicate simply and resonate with both English and Spanish speakers. The final project logo was bilingual, dubbing the project Cornelius Tomorrow/Mañana.

Colorful graphic with houses, a playground, a tree, and the text 'Cornelius Tomorrow Manana' in black and orange.

A Vision for Tomorrow/ Mañana

Throughout the 12-month engagement process, I designed communications materials for community conversations, focus groups, and public events. The visual identity became a thread that connected 1,000+ residents to the planning process, building recognition and trust as the project evolved.

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Cornelius Community Profile_Page_1.jpg
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The Vision Statement

The community engagement process reached 1,000+ community members, and guided the development of the Vision Statement. Organized across four themes, the Vision Statement describes what the community will look like in the year 2045.

In 2045, Cornelius…

  • Illustration of three people celebrating above a globe, with fireworks and stars in the background.

    Celebrates Culture, Community and Diversity

  • Outline drawing of accessible transportation symbols including a wheelchair, a bus, and a transit map on an orange background.

    Enhances Connectivity and Accessibility

  • Line drawing of a park scene with a slide, bench, tree, lamppost, and gazebo under a few clouds on a green background.

    Enriches Parks and Recreational Opportunities

  • Facilitates Strategic Growth and Development

The Action Plan

The culmination was designing the final plan document itself, transforming public policy and community input into a user-friendly, visually compelling guide that city leadership and community partners would actually want to reference and use for years to come.