Core77
- Topics
- Features
- Awards
- Jobs
-
Firms
- Firms
- Search Firms;
- Firm Projects
- Forums
-
More...
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Advertise
- About
- Terms of Use
A Lesson for Designers: When a Logo Redesign References Slavery
It's a tough call. The walls in relation to this particular place and the reason for which they were built bring up bad memories. That's understandable. But the wall is just a wall. It's a more efficient way of building a brick wall, invented in a different time, in a different place. The walls themselves serve different purposes today, and the time, money and energy to tear down the walls and replace them with something else is ludicrous in a time when so many are suffering from so much. If the walls stand as a sumbol, change the symbol. Yes, the walls were built to keep us contained, but we rose above them.
A graphic design detail that references the walls is deemed unacceptable, but the walls themselves remain standing? I don't understand that.
I think it also touches upon how we reinvent our surroundings. Those walls are hundreds of years old, but the civilization that brings meaning to them is changing.
Serpentine walls were not invented by the Dutch. They date at least to 3400 years ago as can be seen in the recently excavated "Lost City" near Luxor: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/lost-golden-city-luxor-discovered-archaeologists-egypt
I’m a designer and art professor who has created logos and branding programs for a number of prominent institutions and universities. I think it is paramount that designers or their creative directors do thorough historical research on elements that are going to be incorporated into a logo that will represent the institution or its programs for, usually, a significant period of time and that will be prominently displayed on the organization’s collateral.