Carol and I have been playing around with the new UUA logo. Carol doesn’t like the way the flame in the new logo is disattached from the candle-chalice thingie. I don’t like the way the sides of the chalice-thingie act as walls which keep the flame from being seen from the sides.
Mind you, it’s way too easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. No logo can ever be perfect, and certainly the UUA logo is a pretty good design, and more than adequate. But it’s way too easy to play around with graphics on our laptops, and Carol and I had nothing better to do on a sleepy Saturday morning, so we spent half an hour revising the UUA’s logo. Here’s what I came up with:
Update: June 24, 2018: The above logo is now released under a Creative Commons license; please attribute to “A UU”.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Compare it to the official UUA logo below. See what I mean about the sides coming up around the flame in the official logo?
(Now that I look at this again, I wish I had made the sides of my version even lower, but I’ve already wasted too much time playing with this.)
Jesus said something like (and I’m paraphrasing here): “Neither do people light a candle and put it inside a red and orange bushel basket, the walls of which extend halfway up the flame, so the people below us cannot see the flame.” Buddha supposedly said (another rough paraphrase): “Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened; but if your candle is inside a red and orange chalice thinige, others will burn their fingers trying to light their candle from your candle.” The new UUA logo is a pretty accurate graphic representation of what our denomination is actually like; my revision of the logo represents the way I wish our denomination were.
Update, 3 hours later: Ah, what the heck, I might as well make the things the way I like it — here’s a version with even lower walls, and now it looks like the “U” is kinda lying back and the candle is standing up inside it:
Update: June 24, 2018: The above logo is now released under a Creative Commons license; please attribute to “A UU”.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
I’m pretty sure the negative space between the flame and the central pillar, along with the curves at the top of the Us were supposed to create a “chalice” like image in reverse image.
But what the heck….
“Disattached”????? Detached? It is a family tradition to comment on the grammar or pronunciation, not on the subject.
nice work for a saturday morning. i prefer your version…i mean, your vision.
Kathy, I meant “disattached.” “Detached” would have iplied that at one point it was attached. “Unattached” would have implied that it could become attached at some point in the future. “Disattached” is an unpleasant neologism which implies that it never was attached, never will be attached, and was never meant to be attached.
I love your paraphrasing of Jesus and Buddha. :)
I’m not too fond (yet) of the new logo, but what I miss the most is the two circles around the chalice … and that has been awhile. It DOES look more modern, which I assume is good. I don’t trust my own instincts on these things, as I’m usually pretty far out of step with even my own generation.
Came across this while looking for images to use in the new unofficial Facebook UUA General Assembly off-site participants group. I like your (first) version better than the official one. Can I have permission to use it in that space as well as potentially with my congregation (West Shore UU Church near Cleveland)? I don’t like the pointy bits on the official version. Makes what are supposed to be stylized U-inside-a-U look like a V-inside-a-U and that bugs me, as do the other points of contention you brought up. Years ago (going on a decade now?) I created a 6 (then edited to be 7) flame chalice to be used as a simple coloring page or other age-inclusive creative purposes and have essentially “released it into the wild” but I’m not sure if that was your intention with your graphic design work and don’t want to assume.
Ahmie, I just put a Creative Commons license on both logos. (Creative Commons Non-commercial licenses require attribution, so notice I’ve asked for attribution to “A UU” — though if you don’t attribute, I won’t mind a bit.)
We have a detached garage that has never been attached to our house…