Town Councilman Daniel Torres recently lead a project to update the town seal.
Last month, Torres discovered an original, high-resolution copy of the seal at Rosendale Printing Press.
The initial seal, created by a local student and approved in 1966, was hand drawn, and features a stone house, an apple tree and lamp.
After unearthing the original composition of the seal, Torres said that a new and updated version was “greatly needed.”
By comparison, Torres said the seal the town had been using on official documents was “off-colored and pixilated.” It became an altered version of the original, whose purposeful characteristics, like the stone house, gradually changed over the last 48 years.
Torres, who appreciates history, said he saw an opportunity to update and refurbish the seal, with an ink drawn logo that more closely mirrors its initial theme and style.
Torres posted on his Facebook page that he had uncovered the lost version of the seal and was looking for someone who would be willing to colorize it, in an effort to restore it to a usable condition.
Matthew Maley, an artist who studied visual art at Purchase College, volunteered to colorize the seal for free.
The house in the seal was outlined to convey it once again as a stone house, instead of a wooden one, to represent the town’s Huguenot heritage. The apple tree stands for the many apple orchards in the area. The lamp personifies knowledge — illustrating that New Paltz is a college town.
In February, the Town Board met and unanimously re-adopted the new version of the seal.