Another summertime freelance job -- this time, designing for a new organization on Harvard's campus, Gender Inequalities in Mathematics. A member of the board reached out to me to design a simple logo for branding purposes.
I tend to go for flat, minimalistic logos as opposed to anything too crowed or skeumorphic, so the below was my first go at the prompt. The general idea was to illustrate a sense of camaraderie amongst the different identities found in the mathematics community, from male to female to anything in between.
As such, each segment of the circle was a person whose identity was represented by a different color, and all the segements link "hands" in a sense. The geometric feel of the draft was meant to keep the spirit of mathematics alive in the work, seen through the bounding circle and and the triange in the middle. At this point, it was a little uncertain what the purpose of the triangle was apart from simply adding more geometric features.
General feedback was positive, with a taste of confusion ("Why the triangle?" "What does the purple represent?").
As such, in the next iteration, I got rid of the purple segment and the triangle. Seemed like a reasonable choice.
I also decided to add in a little text -- you know, so people actually knew what this was about. I'd always wanted to find a good use for Fira Sans, and this seemed to be it. Thankfully, with at least 8 different weights and italicized versions of each weight, I was able to find just the right fit for the job. The final result kept the text as a central, but subdued feature.
After that mild iteration, things started to get a little bit interesting.
Feedback was positive; however, the board thought that the colors weren't necessarily enough to make people instantly think of gender when they saw the logo. The problem I personally saw was that there was really only one other good way to incorporate the idea of gender: using the standard symbols of male, female, and other, ♂ and ♀ (and combinations of the two). The symbol for "other gender" could be used as well, combining the horizontal slash of the female symbol with the arrow of the male symbol.
I decided to try this out, but the result was a little bit messy.
(Fun fact: the standard gender symbols for male and female are derived from the astrological symbols for Mars and Venus respectively! Learn more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_symbol)
Feedback was positive; however, the board thought that the colors weren't necessarily enough to make people instantly think of gender when they saw the logo. The problem I personally saw was that there was really only one other good way to incorporate the idea of gender: using the standard symbols of male, female, and other, ♂ and ♀ (and combinations of the two). The symbol for "other gender" could be used as well, combining the horizontal slash of the female symbol with the arrow of the male symbol.
I decided to try this out, but the result was a little bit messy.
(Fun fact: the standard gender symbols for male and female are derived from the astrological symbols for Mars and Venus respectively! Learn more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_symbol)
I think everyone generally agreed that that was a train wreck, and that the colors would be just fine.
However, the next order of business was to make it look more mathematical. A board member suggested taking a look at the American Mathematics Competition logo, which features an icosahedron -- geometrical, but generally more engaging. Of course, just using a different Euclidean solid was likely not going to work here, especially given my tendency to stay within the realm of the two-dimensional.
I therefore tried to incorporate a Sierpinski Triangle into the mix (a figure that repeats indefinitely in its divisions). The result was interesting; it definitely seemed to be more eye-catching in general, but was almost too much. Note the varying sizes and orientations tried, as well as the incorporation of the "giim" text.
However, the next order of business was to make it look more mathematical. A board member suggested taking a look at the American Mathematics Competition logo, which features an icosahedron -- geometrical, but generally more engaging. Of course, just using a different Euclidean solid was likely not going to work here, especially given my tendency to stay within the realm of the two-dimensional.
I therefore tried to incorporate a Sierpinski Triangle into the mix (a figure that repeats indefinitely in its divisions). The result was interesting; it definitely seemed to be more eye-catching in general, but was almost too much. Note the varying sizes and orientations tried, as well as the incorporation of the "giim" text.
As it all turned out, the second iteration -- with no frills, no triangle, or anything else -- won out. The only different requested was to remove the white space between the hands (which I definitely agreed to).
To finish the job, I incorporated the logo into a couple different title blocks, removing the "giim" text where necessary. Fira Sans, all capitalized, worked well for the full title text.
