WILDOMAR -- It took a while, but the Wildomar City Council-elect has adopted an official logo.

The logo, a patriotic red, white and blue shield, will be used on Wildomar stationery and promotional materials hyping the community's incorporation date of July 1. It was adopted during the council-elect's regular meeting Wednesday.

Wildomar voters in February approved incorporating the community of 27,000 and cast ballots to determine who would be on the inaugural five-member city council.

The shield chosen as a logo is being called temporary because the council-elect plans to work with the community in the future to develop a permanent logo that will represent residents' unified vision of the city.

Scott Farnam, a member of the council-elect, brought up the idea of drawing up a logo and a corresponding motto at the very first meeting of the council-elect that was held in early March.

The logo item was included on subsequent agendas, but it was passed over or dismissed by some of the other members of the council-elect, who said the city should wait and develop a logo and motto during a wide-ranging visioning session.

"It was passed over a number of times, actually," Farnam said Thursday.

But Farnam pressed on and he eventually drummed up enough support among his colleagues to have the interim staff draw up some logo examples, which were dissected at the council-elect's final meeting of April.

On Wednesday, the council-elect discarded those examples in favor of a logo that was designed for use as a Wildomar postage stamp, a project started by councilwoman-elect Bridgette Moore.

The logo -- a red, white and blue vertical rectangle with a flying cursive "W" in the center and a row of stars above -- bears a resemblance to some of the 1976 bicentennial posters and graphics.

That resemblance, intentional or not, makes sense, some of the council-elect members said this week, since the incorporation date falls near July 4 and the meeting will be capped off with fireworks.

Talking about the months that it took for the council-elect to adopt a logo, council-elect member Sheryl Ade said, "At first, I didn't think a temporary or interim logo was a good idea because it would be confusing. However, it's clear that the final logo will be totally different in shape and color than the interim logo, so that negates the confusion factor. It was a creative way of resolving that problem."

While it's not the logo Farnam envisioned, he said it will make a good temporary symbol for the city's first year.

Down the cityhood line, Farnam said he is looking forward to working with residents to draw up a logo and motto that will define the identity of Wildomar.

That sort of branding is important, Farnam said, when a city is working to attract high-end retailers and boost civic pride.

"It's an important step for the city and it's important for the community to be involved in that visioning," he said.

The chairman of the council-elect Bob Cashman, one of the council-elect members who initially didn't place a high priority on adopting a logo, said he recently warmed to the idea.

"I started thinking about what it looks like when you send out a letter," he said Thursday.

During Cashman's tenure on the Wildomar Chamber of Commerce, the chamber developed a logo that features three faces, a stagecoach, rolling hills and a schoolhouse.

The faces on the chamber's logo, two men and a woman, are meant to evoke memories of the town's namesake founders, William Collier, Donald Graham and Margaret Collier.

"I consider symbols very important," Cashman said. "It's a shorthand way of looking at something that's important."

While noting that succeeding generations will eventually change or modify symbols, Cashman said it's important for a symbol or logo to represent the current generation.

"It's saying something about that time period that's good," he said.

Like Farnam, Cashman supports working with the community on a permanent logo and he said a communitywide art contest might be one element of the process.

Contact staff writer Aaron Claverie at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2624, or aclaverie@californian.com.