Two-dimensional design is a notoriously difficult class for incoming freshmen at any art school, and here I found myself; second semester, under the tutelage of one of those "never gives an A" teachers, learning the basics of radial and symmetrical designs in black and white. Oh, and three days prior, I had been diagnosed with Mono(nucleosis) as every college student at some point is: first, you drink your neighbors water instead of your own, never mind that this person should not have been out in public let alone working at the phoneathon. Then, a month later, there's a brick wall that hits. You go into medical services and get a blood test. Then, when they call, they obey every paltry privacy rule (a practice on which your friends report conflicting adherence) in urging you to the third degree to show up at once so they can break the bad news to your face, as if you already did not know. If you're a sucker like me, you also gave blood a few days before; blood you really could use right about now.
I decided to tell some of my teachers about my illness, mainly the ones in the mornings with attendance policies. I missed a few morning classes. I slept every chance I got. I took a few unexcused absences. After a relatively unrelenting week, I began noticing that no matter how long I slept for I felt the same. Every nap, every night, every time; I would wake up exactly as tired as when I laid down. While the observation was exacerbating to my frustration in trying to beat the condition, it was also empowering; despite the constant weight of being tired, I stopped thinking of Mono as something sleep could affect. Instead, it was apparently this crazy shroud illusion of constant effect that I would need to wait out.
There's something transformative that happens to the intention of a person once their most fearsome boundaries are determined to be nothing more than paper tigers. Over-exhaustion? Like every waking hour! - but it's fluctuations were no more severe than the average day-to-day levels I would experience on perfectly healthy days. It didn't take me more than a couple of days, once testing this theory, to settle into it's groove as a constantly exhausted person and just chug along with my obligations. I managed to avoid telling most professors, like the 2D one; as I was not interested in being judged as different by them or my peers or being offered unnecessary shortcuts. Never mind that I should not have been out in public.
One of these nights, my logo was born. The assignment was radial symmetry and invention of a design of our own. (there were other specifics but I cannot remember them.) this was the only late night I had all semester before finals, and I spent it deliriously scribbling, erasing, and eventually penning the design on auto-pilot. Unlike every other assignment that semester, none of the visual decisions that went into this composition had been reconsidered, weighed, or otherwise consciously evaluated. There was a simple, almost industrial sensibility informed by a sense of urgency and limit of will to interfere. My sub-conscious did the work, and my consciousness sat back and watched it on the big screen.
Later on, I was fortunate enough to be able to steal Illustrator CS and migrate the logo to a digital .ai file, while learning hard lessons about computer memory and limitations. I've been able to fine tune it some by adding and moving key points on the paths.
I still have the original (dog-eared, stained) drawing I submitted, and it still has the grade on the back.
