Sunday, November 27, 2005

New Logo

The Jesus Fish, the Cross, the Star of David, the Star and Cresent, the Pentagram. what do these have in common? They are religous symbols that you can easily draw in two strokes or less. You can make a recognizable yin-yang in three.
The Old UUA logo was hard to draw, the new one is a monstrosity.
Being able to draw a symbol is important. It personalizes the symbol, as something that the individual created. It also makes it accesible, because wherever you are, you can make and focus on a symbol of your faith. The uua logos are nice, but no one is going to scratch them into the wall of their cell just before they are lead to their death.
But the UUA logo isn't supposed to be the symbol of Unitarian Universalism anyway. The symbol of Unitarian Universalism is the flaming chalice. Not this logo or that logo, the flaming chalice, an abstract visual concept like the cross or the pentagram.

So I'm announcing the new/old official/unoffical logo of Unitarian Universalism.
Take anything you can use to draw, draw an oval that's about three times as wide as it is tall, then draw a teardrop shape with it's point somewhere above the oval, and it's round part somewhere inside.
That's it, the two-stroke chalice.
Here's mine, with some other low-stroke symbols:

It's perfect for Unitarian Universalism, because it's unique, and comes from yourself.
Now, yes, there are fancy looking crosses, and it's fine for an organization to have a fancy chalice logo. But remember that the symbol of the faith is much simpler, and remember how to draw it.

9 Comments:

At 1:32 PM, November 28, 2005, Blogger Robin Edgar said...

Hi Indrax,

I hate to say so but when I first saw your proposed UUA logo before reading your post I assumed that it was a crude drawing of your stereotypical Hallowe'en widebrimmed conical witch's hat. . .

Best Regards,

Robin Edgar

 
At 2:41 PM, November 28, 2005, Blogger indrax said...

LOL, I see it now too.
I'm not too happy with this particular rendering anyway, but it doesn't surprise me that it's hard to recognize.
Recognition of these basic symbols is largely based on familiarity. What is the cross but a lowercase "t"?
Once the chalice symbol becomes more present than the 'witches hat', people will be more likely to see it first.

 
At 3:06 AM, November 29, 2005, Blogger Jamie Goodwin said...

I just drew mine, and i think it is a fantastic idea.

Amazingly, and maybe for the first and last time ever, I agree with Edgar, but there is a way solve the problem. Just draw the Tear Drop shaped Flame first and add the oval chalice after without breaking the flame.

There are other ways as well. Something like draw the number seven, and then place a tear dropped shapped flame above the top line all the way to the left. It looks like half a chalice

 
At 3:24 AM, November 29, 2005, Blogger indrax said...

You can also do a half circle 'bowl' for the chalice, with the flame above it.

There's probably a lot of 3 stroke solutions too.

 
At 9:35 AM, November 29, 2005, Blogger Robin Edgar said...

Jamie, If you put aside your prejudices, read what I have to say, and then applied UUism's Seven Principles and good old Unitarian reason to what I have to say, you might discover that in fact you agree with most of what I have to say. I expect that what you disagree with is not so much what I actually say, almost all of which is solidly supported by plenty of well documented evidence, but how I say it. . .

 
At 2:18 AM, November 30, 2005, Blogger Jaume de Marcos Andreu said...

You may want to check the new ICUU logo. It is actually very simple and easy to draw. The double flame represents the joint tradition of Unitarianism and Universalism. Check it at www.icuu.net

 
At 1:39 PM, November 30, 2005, Blogger Will Shetterly said...

I like both the 7 + teardrop and the cup + teardrop. I wish one of them could be voted as "official" at GA, 'cause having a simple symbol that all UUs could use would be grand for both promoting the faith and recognizing other UUs.

The ICUU logo is nice for its purpose, but I like simplicity: One flame represents union.

 
At 5:42 PM, November 30, 2005, Blogger Mark said...

Never met a Unitarian Universalist, as far as I know.

Indrax, I wanted to compliment you on the idea of Dr. Glycine. Neat concept. Seems you have a glut of blogs out here on Blogger, but it would be nice to see some more of Dr. Glycine.

 
At 1:48 AM, December 02, 2005, Blogger indrax said...

Thanks Mark!
There will definitely, definitely be a lot more. I have one more entry half written right now (it's on bones)
I've been having a rough time with Xenobiology, and I needed to get the Professor's situation settled again before 'he' could write anymore of Dr. Glycine.

 

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