A Logo For an Event Is Made to Target Only the Attendees.

Logos make sense to the people who knows the philosophy, ideology and spirituality of the organisation. Certain logos are made to connect and impact an inner circle of people. Only they understand the reference and image used in the logo. Its perfectly okay when measuring the impact of a designer.

All may understand the literal meaning of the signifiers. But what the individual images and the image as a whole communicate may not be understood.

Here is an example of a logo created for the Franciscans for their provincial chapter. It made sense to them in that context and with the knowledge of Franciscan spirituality.

the theme given for designing: listen . discern . go forth

here is how i have used the signifiers and what they are meant to signify.

Listen: Francis, for his time, heard the voice / listened to Jesus' words from San Damiano cross at the wayside chapel, saying to him, go repair my church. today, for our times, metaphorically, we got to lend our ears to the same cross speaking to us. therefore i have used San Damiano cross as the central figure.

Discern: to discern is to listen from within. it is to shut ourselves from those compelling voices from outside. so we have the cross speaking to us from within. the ear is attuned to hear from within. the voices from the world falsely compel us to profit-making, competition -its a voice from the market. one could compare it also to the voices that Jesus heard at the desert while undergoing his temptations. but Jesus tuned back to the inner voice, the voice of God.

Go forth: here is a call to act. represented in the logo with the bindle on the shoulders of the friar. after listening and discerning, one is ready for more meaningful missions.

placement of the wordings:

'listen' and 'discern' are internal processes. so placed with the body of the logo.

'go forth' is an outward, and most often, difficult (uphill) journey. so it goes out of the body of the logo and on to an ascent.

Seeing a logo and not knowing what it stands for is like reading a word and not knowing its meaning.

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