A logo, at last
For over two years we have been looking for a ‘corporate’ logo image for our several manifestations – the Amboseli Elephant Trust (both the USA and Kenya branches), the
Amboseli Trust for Elephants (the elephant endowment fund for the future) and the Amboseli Elephant Research Project. At last we believe we have it:
It was a slog. We started with sketches done by Joyce Poole and Beth Archie in the field, a cozy tableaux of three eles in a circle, yearling, mother, plus one big animal, matriarch or bull, depending on your interpretation. But, we thought, maybe we should get some expert design advice, and turned to a friend, Chris Payne, Director of TBWA/Creative. Chris is one of Kenya’s brightest young designers. His ‘Creative’ group has won a number of awards and was recently anointed by the international
TBWA group as its African regional representative.
At our request, Chris took our basic design and slicked it up. Then the debate amongst us started in earnest: Looks too metallic and the little elephant looks anemic. Yes, make the design softer, the youngster fatter. No, not quite right: too ‘designy’. Let’s try a real picture of Echo and her group, but let’s cut off a few eles at the rear, solarize the image and color it sepia. Move the trunk, lift the tail. No, no, that’s not it either. How about changing the font to something more exciting? Or maybe the name shorter. Or…
Chris listened to this for a few weeks, and then said, “That’s enough! All ATE,
AERP, AERP directors and trustees out of the room! I’m taking personal charge.” And so he did.
He recalled an image in David Coulson’s splendid book, 'African Rock Art:
Paintings and Engravings on Stone' (2001, New
York: Harry N. Abrams Inc), asked David and his Trust for African Rock Art
for permission to use it, lifted and rendered the image, and suddenly there it was. A logo with punch and deep history.
African artists had carved our banner elephants on a 30-m2 sandstone rockface 10,000 years ago in the Tadrart hills of Algeria, deep within the Sahara desert near the Libyan and Niger borders. Then, it was as green as Amboseli in the rains and as full of wildlife. Although the line of human figures (below) was added later, the group is clearly connected to the elephants. They seem to be in a celebratory mood, dancing and watching without the array of weapons often seen in rock art.
The Amboseli Trust for Elephants aims to secure this ancient connection between people and elephants well into the future.
