Friday, July 9, 2010

Focus . . . What Do YOU See?

Not long ago my wife was browsing the Westminster online bookstore and did a double-take at the logo for the "Learn about God" series published by Christian Focus. Here's a screen shot of what she saw:


Notice anything unusual about this logo? My wife called me over and asked what I thought about it. Of course, I hedged - "I'm not sure...what do YOU see?" - until I was sure we were talking about the same thing. Not sure yet what you're looking at? It's better bigger.


What? You see two stick figures holding hands? Maybe two fencers facing off?

This week she emailed Westminster bookstore to draw their attention to this ambiguous logo. They've since removed it from the website.


Now I can only speculate what the designers at Christian Focus were thinking, but I find it hard to believe that no one ever studied the logo - black against a white background and didn't realize - hey, that looks like . . .

On the other hand, the logo is small and against a colored background on the covers of their books. It doesn't jump out until it's black and white and big.


So far, most of the friends we've polled have immediately seen what we saw. A few didn't see it right away. I guess that explains how they've gotten away with using the logo since this series was published in 2008.

If you still don't see it, look at the outline, not the figures. Oh and I was driving today on a little stretch of road known as Hwy DD. Seriously - double D.

9 comments:

  1. For a series called "Learning about God," two fencers facing off would be much more accurate historically.

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  2. maybe it's a fertility goddess. i've seen something similar in hindu art.

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  3. Hah, that took me awhile to figure out. Nice catch.

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  4. I'm confident that the folks over at Christian Focus were going for one of the first two options (i.e. fencers, holding hands) and not the not so appropriate third option. I forwarded a link to this blog thread over to a contact I have at Christian Focus, just in case they haven't ever heard of the Learn About God logo being interpreted this way. Doug, thanks for pointing this out.

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  5. Shaun, my wife emailed them directly, too. I don't think she's got a response though. Of course, I'm confident also they were going for the "boy and girl holding hands" look. It just surprised us because the 3rd option is what my wife and I both saw first. We can't have been the first people in 2 years to notice.

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  6. Gee, thanks a lot! I couldn't figure out what you were seeing until you mentioned double D, now I can't see it any other way...

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  7. There is nothing like a publisher responding to its customers comments so...First of all thanks for letting us know. It was an innocent mistake which we hadn't noticed until you pointed it out, apologies for that! We've changed it on web now and the books will be amended as soon as possible.

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