[Over the 30+ years I've worked professionally as a designer, interesting side stories have come up about my identity designs. This is one of an ongoing series of "Logodotes" - anecdotes about my logo designs.]
While in high school and college, in the 1970s, I created ink line drawings of historic Oregon architecture to be sold in galleries, and marketed as prints and notecards. I was often commissioned to execute illustrations of specific structures. At the University of Oregon, I was asked to produce such original art of many of the fraternity and sorority residences on campus. Within the fine detail of the drawings I would hide the Greek alphabet forms representative on my own fraternity, Sigma Chi.
Over the years, I have occasionally had the opportunity to hide similar graphic elements within some identity projects. One such effort was a logo created for a theatrical production of the show "Dishin' With Divine."
A designer does not often get the chance to create a logo featuring a infamous female impersonator such as Divine. The 1994 request to design the identity for the one-man show, written by my friend Don Horn, provided a great opportunity to possibly be playful with the image. I found the chance within the eye of the illustrative element of Divine's portrait. As my personal little "wink," the graphic element representing the reflection of the eye was created in the shape of a women's high heel shoe (above).
The fun with "Divine" didn't end with the logo design. T-shirts featuring the image were produced for the show. In designing the paper doll book Dressin' With Design, I got to art direct my college friend Tracy Hayes as she provided the illustrations for the item to be sold at performances. A set of paper doll refrigerator magnets, complimenting the book, was also produced as a marketing tool. Occasionally the collectible book and magnets may now be found on online auction sites.
© 2010 Jeff Fisher LogoMotives
