Disaster(ous) Logo(s)

blogos

It’s about the process, not the result… the journey, not the destination…

… even though a satisfying outcome would still be ideal.

Ithaca

When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon — do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not set them up before you.

Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of all kinds,

as many sensual perfumes as you can; visit many Egyptian cities, to learn and learn from scholars.

Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.

Without her you would have never set out on the road.

She has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.

Wise as you have become, with so much experience,

you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.

Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)

Flower Thrower

Envisioning the image as  “a complex configuration of visual, verbal, and aural signs….it is manifest not only in films but in all kinds of media texts” (Richard Dyer).  To me, the hardest element to weave into a logo is the aural aspect.

“The time has come to bring back more symbolic marks whenever possible and appropriate because we’ve been over-saturated with abstractions… the best communication is something recognizable that people can relate to”

--Steff Geissbuhler

TRIGGER: Finding inspiration in nature, man-made constructs, and art as fusion of the man-made, the natural, and the in-between (the digital?)

Without consideration, without pity, without shame
they have built great and high walls around me.

And now I sit here and despair.
I think of nothing else: this fate gnaws at my mind;

for I had many things to do outside.
Ah why did I not pay attention when they were building the walls.

But I never heard any noise or sound of builders.
Imperceptibly they shut me from the outside world.

“Walls” – Constantine P. Cavafy (1896)

Bansky decorations on the Palestinian side of the controversial West Bank barrier in Israel (9 in total)

Revisited Revised

Another catastrophe, one we never imagined,
sudden, precipitous, falls upon us,
and unprepared — there is no more time — carries us off.

How can I make myself not read this allegorically? How can I make myself not take this literally?

Is this poem timeless, or has history rendered it time-less?

This was around the time Cavafy had given up on symbols.

Myth, to him, is “depoliticized speech” … poetry with no context, the personal detatched from the political. Could this be right???

His poem has a personal tone, a tone of defiance. Defiance, but not complete disregard for an audience. Not disregard the sense that the audience has to empathize.

He must overcome the trappings of myth, precisely through the very trappings of myth: language, poetry, abstraction, allegory.

Only then can his work be set free. But freedom never comes. Freedom is besides the point.