Image of the Week: Spiral Up
© D. Yael Bernhard
Here's a logo I designed in 2007 for a children's music CD called "Spiral Up." I love that title! And it immediately inspired the image. Like most children's songs, this collection was simple and sweet, full of hope, gently encouraging young children to discover their world and their own growing minds. My youngest child was five years old at the time, and she really liked the music, too.
The activities shown here are meant to represent a variety of creative activities in which children can engage. A young artist holding a paint brush represents visual art. A baseball player stands for sports. A flute player symbolizes music, as well as singers accompanying a guitar player. A girl with freshly-baked bread loves to bake, and a boy harvests a pumpkin from a garden. Another girl is quietly reading a book. And in the center of the spiral, a girl is holding a baby. All these kids are of different ethnic origins, wearing all kinds of colors, floating and dancing their way through a background of rainbow pastels.
I wanted to the mood to be light and airy.
To compose all these elements into a harmonious whole, I first drew them in pencil on tracing paper. Then I cut the shapes out and moved them around on the spiral until they interacted nicely, tumbling together as if on an invisible current – or as if grooving to the same song. I frequently use tracing paper as a design tool – something you can't do on a computer screen. Everything is balanced: one child sitting with legs folded in; one with legs sticking out. One child at a diagonal reaching up, one reaching down; one profile facing left, and one right. One African-American boy, one "ginger," and one Asian child. One girl with braids, one with loose hair. Everything is represented once.
Then I wrote the title with a magic marker, intending it only to indicate style and placement on the sketch I submitted to my client – but we ended up using it in the finished art. The writing was crude and charming as a child's scribble – perfect.
This was a fun assignment. I don't know how well the CD sold – the children's music market is a tough one – but even if these songs helped shape the lives of just a few kids, it was worth it. You never know what will stick in a child's memory or influence their formative years. The musicians who created these songs understood how important it is to set a child's life moving in an upward spiral. I was happy to contribute to that, even in a small way. Plus, I got to contribute a bit, as one of the songs, "In the Fiddle Is a Song," is based on one of my own children's books by the same title (now out of print), converting the rhyming text into a melody.
I lost touch with this client, who had a small child of his own at the time. It's strange to think about that toddler as a teenager now – and my own little one is about to turn twenty. Time is like a spiral, turning in ever-expanding cycles, just like "The Circle Game" song that Joni Mitchell wrote all those years ago about a child growing up.
A good week to all!