Chatham House required a logo and simple website for a their project Interdependencies on Energy and Climate Security for Europe and China. Soon after, they commissioned a cover for their research paper Changing Climates.
The Cover
Changing Climates, was published in the Chinese and English. It discussed the urgent need for China and Europe to cooperate in reducing carbon emissions and finding alternative energy solutions. Eventually, we settled on a composition that suggested a bright future of renewable energy (Fig. i).
The Logo
It was a challenge to create a logo for such a wordy project name. But the key words to develop ideas on were all there, but the first hunch proved the best route. It was based on the widely recognised yin-yang
symbol. It’s the most widely recognised icon for interdependency and it fitted in neatly with the chinese aspect of the project (Fig. ii).
The open outline echoed the brush strokes of chinese ideograms and helped to abstract the shape. While the use of green neutered unwanted political connotations, tied in with climate and energy, and helped interpret it as a globe. And the circular display of the flags’ stars lent themselves to the metaphor’s original design.
The Website
The website needed to present the project’s raison d’être, its contributors, events and relative documents. The budget and deadline were tight, so we opted for a single static page with an accompanying manual to help the project’s organisers update the site themselves. The site’s design picked up on where the logo left off with accompanying illustrations and graphics that followed suit (Fig. iii).
Testimonial
“Seb was very accommodating and we were very pleased with the result.”
Bernice Lee – Chatham House, Project Leader