User:Stevertigo/LS
So my concept for a logo for Wikipedia does not come without some thought -- albeit not at the direct inspiration of Wikipedia, rather I express these thoughts here because i find Wikipedia in harmony with these ideas -- and a validation that I was never alone with these thoughts. A "logo" in this case is a misnomer for a symbol. Wikipedia deserves a symbol -- not merely a logo. Symbols are not mere pictures or brands - symbols must work at levels deeper than the eye can see, and with greater purpose than merely to attract eyes and become familiar to them. Still often we must marry symbolism with specific meanings -- the only honest way to do this is with a story. The story of the Wikipedia is like the story of the Phoenix -- I dont mean to infer that Wikipedia rose from the ashes of Nupedia -- rather that Wikipedia has risen from the ashes of ignorance: As the Phoenix rises from its mortal ashes, so too does knowlege rise from its mortal bounds of books and bindings, of scrolls and tablets -- to become like the Phoenix, a thing of spirit and eternal continuity. The phoenix, contradiction to the legend, does not merely rise from the ashes anew and reborn -- something of the old has risen with her -- in her claw she clutches a scroll -- within it contains a digest of all the meaningful things ever said, and all the true things that ever were known -- written by the hands of scribes, and men of tribes once far away, now a part of a greater community.
---S-