The Chaos Within Our Walls and Falls card no. 1 served as the project's interim logo until September 2016. I had just begun learning graphic design software and was on track to hold my first physical gallery showing in October. I set and met a variety of criteria in order to represent Rochester Grimoire:
* It needed to be a minimalist yet recognizable face for the project. It needed to be striking, vague, and different enough to catch someone's gaze and immediately prompt the question, "what does that mean?"
* It needed to fit in with today's design philosophy in technology and social media, often catering to flat shapes, bold colors, and simple arrangement.
* It needed to pay homage to squares and the perfect resolution they provide, especially in photography. This aspect was directly inspired by iOS's clean and intuitive app icons, as well as the project's birthplace, Instagram, which originally only allowed square photos and still crops-to-square within users' profiles.
* It needed to pay homage to ink-on-paper, whether handwritten or typed. The project's bulk content is in text and written word which are best exemplified by sharp contrast, black and white.
* It needed to pay homage to duality and yin-yang philosophy which have fueled my own understanding of our Universe and are often utilized in Rochester Grimoire. Black and white.
* It needed to pay homage to the project's beginnings; I look back on January 4th, 2015 as a prominent day in my life. Since starting on Instagram I've always formatted grimoire cards very specifically: starting with --- and ending with ---|.
*It needed to pay homage to the ellipsis (...) which implies that there is something hidden which may be uncovered – "There is a story to be told" is the project's current tagline. This plays to the philosophy that stories should be told if they exist in an artist's mind, and to the idea that a deeper understanding of a story can be uncovered with special attention. From a distance, both of sets of hyphens could be seen as ellipses.
* The six hyphens and the pipe represent the start and end of a grimoire card, leaving no room for confusion as to what is considered 'content' and what is considered commentary by the author, footnotes, or hashtags. They're inspired by traditional <HTML> tags like these </HTML> which define the content inside. In this case "---" and ---|" are synonymous with <story> and </story>. Additionally, the square photo frame encompassed the first grimoire cards I had written.
The square encompasses the story.
Since beginning I've watched myself grow monumentally alongside the project; as I've refined its vision, short-term goals, and long-term goals over the years I've grown as an artist in so many areas. I started with iPod photography and fictional captions. Today I'm designing, singing, dancing, listening, documenting, writing, and sharing with the storyteller mindset. As a storyteller, there is no limit to genre, style, or intention. As the project is open-to-interpretation it's also open to growth and diversity. This key aspect is expressed in the square, which can be removed or molded to encompass stories of all types.
The square encompasses the story.
Since beginning I've watched myself grow monumentally alongside the project; as I've refined its vision, short-term goals, and long-term goals over the years I've grown as an artist in so many areas. I started with iPod photography and fictional captions. Today I'm designing, singing, dancing, listening, documenting, writing, and sharing with the storyteller mindset. As a storyteller, there is no limit to genre, style, or intention. As the project is open-to-interpretation it's also open to growth and diversity. This key aspect is expressed in the square, which can be removed or molded to encompass stories of all types.