Seth Godin in his famous marketing book, Purple Cow, advocates being – yes, a purple cow.
I can’t say I was all that keen on the idea when I first set up on the net. Destiny, however, had other plans.
I started on the internet by looking for a memorable name. Scanning a list of design firms, I immediately forgot evey title but one, ‘The Red Door’.
Obviously I needed a name that would conjure up a similarly simple. meaningful picture in the mind’s eye. This image would also have to symbolise the web persona I aspired to. Dignified, wise, creative.
I didn’t start off too well. It happened I had recently created a character for a fund raising campaign at my Oxford college. This, with startling originality, was an owl.
Cliche or not, I hesitated some while before venturing to steal back my bird from that illustrious college. In the end, I took the easy way out – and the owl.
Oxford Owl
This drawing may have been a tad too fierce for the university campaign, but I do feel it conveys the bird’s traditional aura of learning and the rigorous pursuit of truth. To this I added the mystic and majestic colour of purple and registered the domain purple-owl.com.
Pride comes before a fall.
To start with I needed a logo. Easy. I painted an owl, set it in a circle and went for a cup of coffee.
Purple - Um Logo
When I returned I gazed at my work of art – only to find it had turned into a purple hippopotamus.
Take another look at the logo yourself. Imagine a couple of nostrils on the lower part of the circle. Lo and behold, a hippo.
Hastily cropping off the lower section of the image, I posted it up. It must be reasonably successful as quite a number of people have stolen it.
Purple Owl Logo
MORAL. Have you really drawn what you think you have drawn? It might just be something else. Go away. Come back and look again.
Meet Seth Godin’s real Purple Cow
Tags: art, creative, learning, logo, memory, metaphor, owl, purple cow, symbol, visualisation, visualise
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Put your worst face forward
Re the fierce owl – I did have my own tutors in mind when I drew this intimidating bird! Particularly Elaine Griffiths. An alarming lady. She and JRR Tolkien were examiners for Old English at the university. I believe it was she who persuaded Tolkien to send The Hobbit to a publisher. If it were not for her, maybe he would never have published The Lord of the Rings. Perhaps he was as terrified of her as I was!
Hey it took me a minute to see a hippo there! But yes there is and you give good advice
Anita
.-= Sliloh´s last blog ..On Hiatus =-.
Interesting that it took you a while to see the hippo. I found that once I had seen the hippopotamus, if I stared at the logo, it kept switching from one interpretation to the other.
That is typical is it not Valerie? Once someone says it is something or we interpret something from a different angle, that perception becomes part of our “reality” about the piece.
We talked about this last session in regards to our posts. Did we say what we thought we were saying? Writing is an art form too, that is open to endless interpretation!
Bean
PS I like the fierce owl, he reminds me of my own professors!
.-= Bean Fairbanks´s last blog ..How collectives can benefit from SOBCon 09 =-.
Oh yes — I always go away and come back. For the very reason you wrote — now I’ll know what to call it. The purple hippopotamus.
I happen to love the owl you settled on in your logo above. It says what you want about your persona, but it also says, first you’re an artist.
.-= Barb Hartsook´s last blog ..Do We Always Do What We’ve Always Done? =-.
Here’s wishing you a purple hippopotamus-free life Barb! Very wise to go away and come back later. When I have finally finished some art piece, I am all impatient to post it up without ado. Often regret it! That’s why I do so much tweaking later. Really ought to practise what I preach!
By the way, I learned from Wikipedia that a female hippo is a called a cow.