TESOL Logos

It always seems so easy to make or design a logo for an event.  Recently at Creativiti Project, we offered a link to a video on how poorly designed city flags are.  Now, at ELT Rants, Reviews and Reflections, a friend of the blog author looks into TESOL conference logos. Ah, TESOL is an abbreviation of several forms of "Teaching English as a Second Language".

The open box logo for KOTESOL's International Conference was used as one (of several) example of 'the bad'.

I tend to look uncritically at such things but, once pointed out, I do wonder.  What does the box mean?  Are we outside the box or building one? Are the lines offering descriptions of each side?  The word 'Transition' - what does it mean?

I am speaking at the Jeju Regional KOTESOL Conference this Saturday.  I don't see a logo at the link.  Jeju KOTESOL does have a nice logo emphasizing the island and its tropical allure.  It has no obvious symbol of English or teaching.

Surprises Aplenty's Fiftieth...and Canada's 150th anniversary

From the Huffington Post, news of a Logo contest for Canada's 150 birthday (my own fiftieth birthday is in the same month).

At the top, the multicoloured diamond-based flag is the winning Logo.

The three in a row were contracted for by Heritage Canada and the bottom one is one I liked from the alternatives.

All the options used the Maple Leaf.  I have no problem with the leaf but Canada has more symbols than that.

What would I choose?

Below incorporates the leaf in our Flag but I like the map aspect. From Country Flags.

I think National Geographic -or maybe Canadian Geographic - had a great image from space of our nation.  This is the closest I could find.

From my own artwork, a concept piece with the Pacific Ocean on the left, followed by the Rockies, the plains, the Eastern mountains, Newfoundland and the Atlantic:

I tried to draw the CN Tower with the Canad-arm on the top, holding a hockey stick.  As the Tower and Arm are products of the '70's and '80's, I am reminded of how old I am.

I also considered a syringe.  I could show bridge from our past, when Banting developed insulin to treat diabetics, with our present, with junkies in Vancouver at clean needle sites.

Hmmm.  Tower. Arm. Stick. Needle. All those phallic symbols. Again, I am old; maybe this list shows symptoms of a mid-life crisis and desire for virility.

As for myself, I wonder about a family in a canoe with a Canada-Korea flag on the side.  I have lived outside of Canada for a long time, but I still think that Canadian symbols are also Surprises Aplenty symbols. For both: the canoe, and water are important to me.