derafsh (13. 452)

Whilst already prohibited as a symbol of political provocation during the 2022 Qatari games though inconsistently enforced, FIFA is introducing a blanket ban against the pre-revolutionary and pro-monarchist lion and sun flag at World Cup venues. Reportedly the move was instigated as a prerequisite to the national team’s participation in the events. Unhelpfully, Twitter at the beginning of the joint Israeli-US war of aggression against Iran changed its flag emoji to the pre-1979 version championed by those against the Islamic Republic. The title ( درفش) refers to the battle standard used by ancient Persian armies.

snake-charmer (13. 145)

Having covered the mistaken medical caduceus (from the Ancient Greek κηρύκειον for “herald’s wand”) and the iconography of the intertwined serpents representing the fleet-footed messenger of the gods Hermes / Mercury and also the brilliant corporate logos of graphic designer Paul Rand previously, we enjoyed this brief missive from the Daily Heller revisiting the two topics. This deviation and arguable misuse as a symbol for healing, rather than the Rod of Asclepius, the deity associated with the medical arts and whose staff only has a single snake with no wings, dates back to a well-documented adoption of the insignia by the US army surgeon general and the decision of a single officer over the objection of scholars and badge bearers in dated to 1902. The abstract corporate logo, one of Rand’s first, is from 1945 and reflects that misapplication (likely also a choice for symmetry though the caduceus is also associated with alchemy) for client Smith, Kline & French, pharmaceutical company specialising originally in geriatric drugs—now part of Glaxo Wellcome.

synchronoptica

one year ago: US tariffs and shipping restrictions for China (with synchronopticæ) plus chromatic wood type

twelve years ago: monuments men plus improving clinical Wikipedia 

thirteen years ago: self-hypnosis plus an abdication in the Netherlands

fourteen years ago: Star Wars abstract art 

sixteen years ago: geometric dreaming 

 

agitprop (13. 019)

Hacker emeritus, Jamie Zawinski, presents quite a memory dump sharing the original, mostly forgotten logo designs for the open source web-browser Mozilla that was created on commission by graphic designer Shepard Fairey to create a corporate brand back in 1998—a spin off of Netscape that would eventually become Firefox, featuring the dinosaur mascot and backgrounds and colour schemes inspired by the Soviet propaganda of Vladimir Mayakovskii and visual contemporaries. One banner encouraging one to download the code even contains in translation the reference to the Proverbs chapter six: ПОРАБОТАЕШЬ БУДЕТ МУКА; ПОСИДИШЬ СЛОЖА РУКИ БУЛЕТ НЕ МУКА́ А МУ́КА—Sit with crossed arms and there will not be flour, the verse admonishing to not give into slumber. Much more from JWZ at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Southern Solstice (with synchronopticæ), president Musk plus assorted links to revisit

twelve years ago: Bjork’s private island, the blog is dead—long live the blog, Star Wars embraces fan-art plus saintly hand gestures

fifteen years ago: more unseasonable weather

hey mabel black label (12. 847)

Founded in 1898 in Philadelphia Pennsylvania, the Fenton Label Company Incorporated specialised in commercial stickers, makers’ marks and gummed labels (see previously) and produced these wonderful sample sheets, like the pictured image from a 1940 catalogue, to advertise their range to potential clients. A wonderful graphic design and typological specimen, we can’t tell if all these North American businesses were actual brick-and-mortar shop fronts or were mock examples meant to demonstrate their printing possibilities but it proved to be a fun exercise to try to trace them down. The Hotel Barlum of Detriot did exist but it’s more of a challenge to track down the more generic brands, shops, services and agents and there are some choice vintage products to be found, such as non-poisonous salmon eggs, fruit tingle and something called original Canadian lotion. More from Present /&/ Correct at the link above.

cdc (12. 690)

As the US Department of of Defence is apparently moving ahead with renaming it the Department of War—which seems unalloyed with Trump’s aspirations for the Nobel peace prize, the Daily Heller revisits the branding (influenced by ISOTYPE) and logos created by Charles T Coiner for the Civilian Defence Corps of the FDR administration. While it is unclear whether America is in need of a comprehensive corporate identity and national design strategy, it is manifest that the work of graphic designers and communicators help to sanctify the vaunted ideals underpinning democracy and the dignity of the worker in their role as defenders of the values of freedom and equity. More from Print magazine, as well as disambiguating the alphabet soup of agencies, at the link up top.

⚐ (12. 589)

Reminiscent of the flag of South Vietnam, carrying nuanced meanings for the diaspora outside the communist nation and sadly coopted with little context by some pro-Trump elements, we learn via Web Curios that there’s a comparable battle over the flag of Iran. While the official tricolour adopted after the Iranian revolution of 1979 bearing the emblem in the centre with the name of God stylised as both a sword and a tulip, symbolising bravery and martyrdom. Other groups outside of Iran prefer the older banner of the deposed Shah, the personal flag of the Pahlavi dynasty with the ancient symbols of the Sun and Lion that goes back to Byzantine times, both in the pro-monarchy movement and those protesting the current regime as authoritarian as more inclusive. The older flag’s association with conservative monarchists movements and regime change moreover apparently informed Israel’s decision to name its war the with country Rising Lion. Yet other groups are partial to the three coloured bands with no shield as a way to acknowledge diversity of political allegiances and was historically championed by pro-constitutional, democratic counter-revolutionaries before outside intervention. The pictured further alternative is charged with the slogan Woman Life Freedom that emerged out of the 2022 protests that arose after Kurdish Mahsa Zhina Amini died in the custody of the Guidance Patrol, the religious morality police for not conforming to government standards of modesty in dress, with the message rendered in the same early Persian script, Kufic—cuneiform adapted to Arabic letters, that embroiders the official flag’s fimbriation as the takbīr (تَكْبِير ).

gwened (12. 564)

Capital of the Moribihan department of the Bretagne region, we made a visit to the ancient harbour and Old Town quarter of Vannes, whose ducal seat goes back to the Gallo-Roman settlement of Darioritum (then named for the seafaring Veneti people whose land was occupied, the Breton version derived from the same) and was considered the chief city and parliamentary centre of independent Brittany from the fifth century, with the first king Nominoë reigning in the early 1000s until the time of the French Revolution.

The entire medieval townscape was quite a sight to take in and we had quite a few impressions of the well-preserved, walled core and ensemble of historic buildings.

The heraldic charge of the city is the ermine, also reflected in the flag of Brittany, which we really like as the dog’s coat is similarly scored with a white spot on her chest with the same noble marking.

Another famous emblem of the patrimony of the city is a polychrome architectural element, Vannes et sa Femme, a stone bust of the couple dating from the sixteenth century incorporated into a half-timbered building’s façade (maison à colombage, presently a pizzeria) and the jovial pair possibly originally advertised a cabaret. This pixelated image affixed to a wall just outside Place Henry-IV is perhaps an homage to Missus Vannes.

11x11 (12. 472)

higher power: traditionally anodyne, new Chinese spaceflight mission patches (see also) might betray some secrets 

triple word score: fun variants, house rules and more Scrabble-related news—see previously 

a stra ze neca: no, the multinational pharmaceutical concern name does not mean “a road to death” in Latin 

hamburgervons: a flip book of font specimens to build the perfect typeface—the heading a typographer’s tool to test layout and legibility—see also   

revenge of the sith: a retrospective for the prequel twenty years on—see also here and here 

there i ruined it: interesting mashup of US national anthem to the tune of Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” 

kyphosis bicyclistarum: an 1893 warning from the Lancet for wheelmen on the bad posture and stoop that frequent cycling can cause—see also   

sunny days: after Trump defunds PBS and NPR, Netflix is championing Sesame Street   

micro-camper: a well-appointed mobile tiny home in the bed of kei truck—via Things Magazine (much more to discover there)   

fan theory: Doctor Who’s “Interstellar Song Contest”—Eurovision counter programming—teases the return of a classic arch-villainess  

pinball wizard: the 1976 NBC gameshow flop, The Magnificent Marble Machine, with celebrity players 

niallia tiangongensis: evolution on display in novel bacteria found aboard China’s space-station—via Damn Interesting

synchronoptica

one year ago: more on the Kessler Effect (with synchronoptica), AI overviews plus two classes of typos

seven years ago: Pentecost, for-profit colleges plus a ride on a steam locomotive

eight years ago: reforming the US electoral college, the Global Seed Vault is flooding, protesting Trump’s bribes plus an AI names bespoke colours

nine years ago: a visit to Tintagel

ten years ago: a time lapse of climate change, assorted links to revisit plus the making of The Shining

canting arms (12. 198)

Having previously learned a bit about kamon (家紋, Japanese family crests), we enjoyed these reimagined emblems by graphics designer So Terada with incorporate cuisine into these ancient symbols, some inherited over generations and others adopted for aesthetic reasons as the practise became more popular and not limited to the gentry—originating as a bespoke standard or license plate on ox carts to identify rank and status, with a certain protocol for right-of-way. There’s a tribute to Italian food as well as motifs with traditional Japanese dishes. What personal crest would you choose reflecting your favourite foods? Much more from Spoon & Tamago and the artist’s website at the links above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Comic Sans (with synchronoptica),  Elmo loves you plus more bardcore

seven years ago: an arresting photograph that turned public opinion, structural dandelions, more on gravitational waves, monumental artist Krzystof Wodiczko plus a colour classification system

eight years ago: the premier of the Monkees plus the rhetoric of tv politics

nine years ago: US presidential campaigning begins, eradicating all mosquitoes plus late-stage capitalism

ten years ago: Karl Marx’ love letters, debt forgiveness plus assorted links worth revisiting

franklin mint (12. 182)

Via fellow peripatetic and internet caretaker Messy Nessy Chic, we are directed towards the first officially circulated coin of the United States, known as the Fugio cent, purportedly designed by Benjamin Franklin owning to its similarity to his earlier continental dollar coin, struck as samples for potential currency but never put into circulation. Minted in 1787, the obverse features a sundial with the common Latin dictum “I fly”for such installations (see previously) and the English adage to “mind your business,” referring to being attentive to one’s budget and household. The reverse is decorated with thirteen chain links, representing the colonial states (see also) with the third motto of “We are One”—transitioning back to the Latin of “E pluribus unum” of the Great Seal of the US. A horde of several thousand of these pennies was discovered at the Bank of New York in 1926 and given out as souvenirs to clients until the intervention by the American Numismatic Society two decades later, recognising their historical and colletable value and the remaining sixteen-hundred remained together.

royal achievement (12. 151)

Ascended to the throne one year ago after the abdication of his mother, Margrethe II, King Frederik X. has changed the coat of arms of the monarchy, last lightly adjusted in 1972, that better reflects the composition of the Danish realms from a historical and heraldic perspective, giving formerly colonies and present autonomous regions of Greenland and the Faroe Islands equally billing with their own fields (quartered shield with the update per dexter, represented by a polar bear and ram respectively—the escutcheon supported by a pair of woodwoses, vildmænd, a symbol for the patron protector Silvanus of the woodlands). Decreed in late December, the change signals (see also) that Greenland is not for sale after repeated overtures by the incoming Trump administration and internal calls for the territory’s independence, which with the US involvement has not always worked out well (see previously here, here and here), and the de-mothballing of American military installations in Iceland.

vexing vexillology (12. 084)

Via Web Curios, we very much appreciated, as an enthusiastic vexillophile, the chance to return to a favourite topic of national standards and iconography in this survey and analysis of flag design elements. Compared by colour distribution and proportion, they all can look alike—or by dent of dominate layouts—but what was most fascinating about this project was a chart of tracked-changes, revealing that the US flag had an unrivalled thirty-six
iterations (we suppose that most aren’t updated for incorporated territories) as contrasted with Germany’s ten or the second-place Afghanistan’s twenty-four, flag age (Denmark is the veteran) as a history lesson or this sort of periodic table that shows where unclaimed terra nullius could rise to statehood. Recursively, the above banner with a weaver’s hitch (or/azure) is the flag of the International Federation of Vexillological Associations, from vexillum, a type of square ensign for the Roman calvary which was coined for the study of flags—separate from heraldic scholarship—in 1957 by Whitney Smith, and encyclopaedist and graphic designer who contributed to the Guyana, Aruba and many newly independent, formerly colonial territories as well as a flag for Antarctica.

living insignia (11. 989)

Tasked by the editor of the San Francisco Examiner, one William Randolph Hearst, with finding, photographing and capturing alive a wild grizzly—believed to be extinct in California—reporter Allen Kelly went on a several months long expedition in the San Gabriel Mountains and eventually detected a large bear, later called Monarch, that they lured into a trap baited with honey and mutton. Becoming the last of his kind in captivity, Monarch was transported by livery to the city and presented to the public for the first time in his grotto at Woodward’s Gardens (later in Golden Gate Park) on this day in 1889. Surviving the devastating 1906 earthquake, the bear became a symbol of strength and reward and prominently displayed as San Francisco recovered and rebuilt, prompting the revision of the state flag (Ursus arctos horribilis—the name garnered a bad reputation for the creatures that were mostly herbivores and posed little threat to people or livestock—had been the California state animal and depicted already on earlier designs of the banner) to immortalise the bear. Euthanised at a very advanced age in 1911, Monarch’s taxidermied body is on display, maintained by the California Academy of Sciences.

k kilo (11. 930)

 

Via Kottke, we thoroughly enjoyed this hand illustrated overview of international maritime signal flags—developed and standardised to facilitate communication between ships over distances and language barriers, like the radio spelling alphabets (for both letters and numbers) which follow similar conventions to the same ends. The exercises in morphology and conveying more complex messages with heraldry (the above, per pale or and azure, has the lone syntax, “I wish to talk with you”—see previously on how such language has shifted) were fascinating and Rabbit Waves gives similar treatment to day-signs, markers used in lieu of signal flags, and semaphore. 

union label (11. 810)

We enjoyed this celebration of the American Labour Day holiday (see previously) through this collection of standard-bearers, banners carried on marches and strikes to unite workers for the common-cause of fair wages and bargaining rights, drawn from various archives and industries. Most of the oldest historical emblems—many still extant—comes from garment and textile workers, with delightfully florid iconography that harks back to the professional guilds of the Old World, like the New York Journeymen Tailors’ Protective and Benevolent Chapter. Much more from Hyperalleric at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: anthropomorphised food mascots (with synchronoptica) plus Badger, Badger

seven years ago: reposting World War II as it happened plus the companies contracted to build Trump’s border wall

eight years ago: no more McDonald’s in Iceland plus arctic tourism

nine years ago: NASA’s graphics standards manual

ten years ago: a kissing flower 

8x8 (11. 642)

crazy logic: a rather seamless mashup of Gnarls Barkley, Rockwell, Pink Floyd and Sumpertramp  

ыһыах: the Yakut people of arctic Siberia celebrate New Year on the Summer Solstice  

culicidology: a fascinating two-part discussion of mosquitoes with Alie Ward 

baggage carousel: an animated journey of checked airline luggage 

the phrygian cap: the Paris Games’ mascot with a revolutionary past—via Miss Cellania  

the beige begins early here folks: McMansion Hell (previously) presents another instalment of the American Medieval Revival—via Things Magazine  

re-alignment: just ahead of Solstice celebrations, activists with Just Stop Oil douse the megalithic calendar with orange paint power 

chiroptera: a ballet chroegraphed by Thomas Bangalter, formerly of Daft Punk—via tmn

seskleur (11. 501)

Proclaimed on this day in 1994 and officially adopted and flown for the first time a week later by president F W de Klerk (Nelson Mandela would succeed him in May, selected in the same general elections that incorporated the new design), and a synopsis, homage based on the Union Jack, the Dutch flag and the flag of the African National Congress (the political party, the ANC) and other elements of national banners of the country’s history, South Africa’s new flag, replacing the “Oranje, Blanje, Blou” of the apartheid era and—not including emblems and charges—is the only six-colour national flag. No universal symbolism is ascribed to the colours in order to allow personal attributions, with only the Y shaped element specifically meant to convey the convergence of diversity and unity going forward. Intended only as an interim rallying emblem, another contest was held in 1995 but it was decided, by popular acclaim, to keep the one that heralded justice and reconciliation.

8x8 (11. 444)

going in style: fantastic custom sarcophagi from Ghanaian coffin-maker Paa Joe  

tiamat: the misremembered series finale of the Dungeons & Dragons Saturday morning cartoon—see previously  

spoofing: FlightRadar maps GPS jamming—see also

cincyflags: neighbourhood banners for all of Cincinnati’s fifty-two communities—via Pasa Bon! 

mergers and acquisitions: Trump expected to see a windfall from the sale of social media network 

coal holes: cast iron plate covers for the chutes of London—see also  

infantile amnesia: early childhood memories may not be lost and yield insights to brain development—via the New Shelton wet/dry 

regeneration: a look at the jurisdiction practising human composting

synchronoptica

one year ago: sampler silhouettes, punctuation in headlines plus scrimshaw from oceanic plastic trash

two years ago: assorted links worth revisiting

three years ago: AI-generated pick-up lines, a variation of the Medusa myth, the controlled-deorbit of the Mir (2001), lockdown on year on, vintage GIF buttons, pole tossing plus REM’s Out of Time (1991)

four years ago: dissolution of the African Economic Union (1985)

five years ago: the musical stylings of Carsie Blanton, a town’s strong connection to the number eleven, Nick of Time (1989), the tarot of Pamela Colman Smith, Robert Mueller concludes his investigation plus the UK votes

9x9 (11. 218)

inukshuk: CGP Grey grades the flags of the Canadian provinces—see previously  

omnibus: a compilation of the best books of the year 

52 things: Kottke shares some inspired, superlative gleanings from the past twelve months 

black smokers: hydrothermal vents evolved to prey on benthic Santas  

editors’ picks: some of NPR’s favourite, possibly overlooked stories of the year  

in a big country, dreams stay with you: assessing the size of YouTube—via Waxy  

there are two kinds of bubbles: speculation on the speculative nature of artificial intelligence from Cory Doctorow  

font foundry: the year in typography  

first nations: the contentious, selective display of tribal flags at the Oklahoma state capitol

l’etoile du nord (11. 140)

The state flag of Minnesota, as TYWKIWDBI informs, is undergoing a redesign (see previously here and here and here) to modernise the banner and refine the jumble of tiny symbols emblazoned within, keeping the lodestar but to the regret of many residents forgoing the loon and happily removing the imaging the of the Native American riding off into the sunset with a settler ploughing the field in the foreground. Subject to public input, the redesign will be finalised by the committee from a selection of six finalists by the new year. The clean abstract look reminds me of the flags of the prefectures of Japan—which whilst not uniform, do have a cohesive look to them and wonder if the rest of the American states ought not to follow this example of vexillological reform for more of a corporate branding. The flags of the German states, notwithstanding the coats-of-arms—which can be complicated affairs but follow the rules of heraldry or blocks of patterns, and are like the rule-of-thumb prescribes, recognisable and can be drawn from memory. More at the links above.