New Logo Unveiled For Pro Portsmouth's 2021 Market Square Day Festival

PORTSMOUTH, NH — This year’s Market Square Day Festival has a new logo.

The design, created by artist Kristin Johnson, was unveiled on Wednesday at The Juicery in Portsmouth as a way of acknowledging its success, according to Barbara Massar, the executive director of the organization. Johnson’s design, which was picked out of several submissions, will be featured on race and volunteer T-shirts as well as festival T-shirts, too.

Alex Vandermark and his team at The Juicery, she said, have been a part of Market Square Day since 2013.

“As we continue to make our way through challenging times, it’s even more important that we acknowledge, nurture, and appreciate the impact of relationships built over time,” she said.

The past 18 months have been difficult but many people were looking forward to the event this year, Massar said. She pointed to one email she received from Sarah McCue who said her father, David McCue, who worked in the city for four decades and ran in the road race off and on since 1983, died last year. Sarah McCue even ran the race with him.

To honor him, the family designed a logo which will be featured on bibs and T-shirts. She and her family were looking forward to attending the event and seeing all the runners, too.

“We hope there are other father-daughter and family teams running this year,” she said “We love the idea that runners will see his face on the back of this year's Market Square Day T-shirt as they run through the streets of Portsmouth. If he can't be with us in body, he is with us in spirit.”

Pro Portsmouth has also decided to forego the annual balloon arch display.

“Every year we recap the event, and for a number of years now, the arches have come up as an area of concern,” Massar said. “The decision wasn’t easy, but it’s about doing what’s right. Regardless of how careful we are with disposal of the arches, the balloons end up in landfills, where it may take 5-plus years for them to decompose. And, we wanted to make the call on our own terms, not as the target of a social media campaign. Pro Portsmouth values the place it holds here in town.”

Massar thanked a number of Seacoast businesses that were making Market Square Day possible including for 2021 including Wentworth-Douglass Hospital, Road Race Co-Title Sponsors, Atlantic Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine, and Primmer, Piper, Eggleston & Cramer, as well as Festival and Race Supporting Sponsors People’s United Bank, Runner’s Alley, Lyons Law Offices, Bottomline, NH State Council on the Arts, Consolidated Communications, Coca Cola Beverages Northeast, Blue Dolphin, and InHouse Digital.

Parking restrictions will begin at 4 a.m. on Sept. 18. The road race will start at 8 a.m. Entertainment begins at 11:30 a.m. Vendors will be active all around Market Square.

Volunteers are still needed. For more information, visit the Pro Portsmouth volunteer website, linked here or contact Lauren Rosen at 433-4398 Ext. 4 or coordinator@proportsmouth.org.

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