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Date: 12/27/2022
SOUTHWICK – The town of Southwick has been in the process of developing a new Master Plan for more than a year now in the hopes of creating a guiding document for development and municipal priorities over the next two decades.
Early on in the process after the Master Plan Advisory Committee was formed last year, the committee determined that a mascot of sorts was needed to go along with the endeavor.
“We wanted to make sure the process was fully supported by the community,” said committee member David MacWilliams. “We figured that if we had a logo, all the materials we put out would have a cohesive look to them.”
MacWilliams turned to his 24-year-old son, Charlie MacWilliams, who has begun a career in graphic design and animation. He has worked in a freelance capacity since obtaining his degree in animation from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 2020. He has worked on the animation teams for the Netflix show “Inside Job,” where he did color design, and the Apple TV show “Harriet the Spy,” on which he did the prop animation designs.
When Charlie MacWilliams was approached by his dad to create the logo, his first thought was to highlight the famous “jog” in Southwick’s southern border. West of Congamond Lake, a tab of Massachusetts juts into Connecticut, forming a noticeable interruption in what is otherwise a mostly straight east-west line separating the two states.
He took an outline of the town map and turned it into a character.
“It started out as this bulky ‘T’ shape, then it turned into something more resembling Southwick,” said Charlie MacWilliams.
The design went a little beyond the shape of the town’s borders, as Charlie MacWilliams wanted to incorporate bits of Southwick’s culture. On the mascot’s shirt is the Rams logo for the Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School District. He also wears boots, which Charlie MacWilliams said are representative of Southwick’s agricultural, working culture.
The mascot also dons a blue scarf, which drapes to the right side of the image, and Charlie MacWilliams said is supposed to somewhat resemble Congamond Lake.
After the design was finalized and approved by the advisory committee as a whole, the only thing left was to name it. The main contenders for the name seemed to center around words used to describe the part of Southwick that pokes into Connecticut. “Notch” was one idea which Charlie MacWilliams had floated, but the committee in the end voted on another name for the logo based on that piece of land, “Jog.”
If one has gone to Southwick2040.com or read any official notices from the Master Plan Advisory Committee recently, they are now greeted with Jog, the face of the master plan.