THE LOGO THE LOGO

THE LOGO THE LOGO

The LogoA S H O R T S T O R Y

b y J A M E S N A K A M U R A

THE LOGO THE LOGO

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THE LOGO THE LOGO

Shay got home from his job interview feeling new. The blank page of this new chapter was waiting

to be filled in. This was his first job after graduating with a degree in Marketing and he would start within a week as Marketing Coordinator at Hibiscus Media. This was point A of his upward trajectory, and to celebrate his launch he caught the bus to Foodland and bought himself a bottle of Yellowtail cabernet. It seemed appropriate. In the span of his lifetime, he would develop a more sophisticated taste for the finer things but for now a simple, cheap Yellowtail was what he knew. When he arrived at his 3 bedroom house in Makiki, his 2 other roommates congratulated him and they all celebrated with a case of beer. At 10pm, the night was over, and Shay, drunk and exhausted went into his bedroom. Over his bed hung a ghostly logo. It floated

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directly above his pillow and rotated slowly, like a quarter spinning on its side. It was luminous, yet it cast a shadow. When Shay looked closer, he realized that the hologram was translucent. “Finally,” he said. “It’s here.” This was Shay’s logo. And it felt right. He went to sleep under the apparition, and it spun over him like a small galaxy of lights. As the years passed, Shay advanced through the company. He became an Account Supervisor and saw to it that his clients were satisfied with the services they were receiving. He was dating a girl named Joyce, a blonde 24 year old media salesperson with a swimmer’s body and a way of speaking that seemed as if she were communicating through a television set. They moved in together after their first year and celebrated their anniversary with a trip to her hometown in Modesto where they stayed with her parents. The room they slept in was her childhood room. Most of the space was taken up by storage boxes but Shay noted the childhood details that still punctuated her room - the small pink dresser, the red lipstick phone, the plush dolls lining the floor next to the closet. Her parents welcomed him warmly and insisted they forego the motels, and so they slept in her room.

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All the while the logo spun overhead. He could now make out a small swimmer in it’s negative space. “That’s you,” he said. And they stared at it as if the ceiling had been lifted off like a lid and the moon was shining down on them. “Glad I made the cut,” she answered. More years passed, and Shay and Joyce remained a happy, blushing couple. They smiled at each other over the quiet distances of candlelit landscapes, letting their fingers intermingle at restaurants over cocktails. They ran together in the mornings and enrolled in various weekend classes – cooking, dance, guitar. They amassed entire collection of jazz records and educated each other on their favorite musicians. They bought a two-man kayak and strapped it onto the rooftop of their black Mazda protoge and paddled around the island’s shores. They moved in to a larger apartment and bought an entire catalog worth of BoConcept furniture and accents, charged to Shay’s Visa. These were the idyllic early days. And the entire time, over their bed, the logo spun overhead. It followed them to every bed and took on the characteristics of their surroundings. It glowed like a campfire, a red flame over a teepee of three logs when they went camping on the North Shore. It took on the characteristics of a marquee when they

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took a trip to Las Vegas, appearing over their bed in the MGM. When they traveled to Greece, it adopted the columns of the Pantheon, all while retaining its basic identity system as Shay’s logo. “Why don’t I get a logo?” asked Joyce one night. “Maybe you don’t brand yourself enough,” Shay answered. He was brushing his teeth. Joyce removed her glasses and set it down on the black-stained oak night stand. “Maybe I don’t believe in branding,” she said. “Oh? What do you believe in?” asked Shay. “Hmm. I believe in you. And me. I believe in the food we cook. Water. Air. And, sun,” she said. She smiled and pushed her feet under the duvet. She was happy. When Shay turned out the lights, the logo emitted a faint glow that he had not seen before. It was reflecting bliss, he decided.

* * * Joyce died in an automobile accident on a Sunday evening on the way home from a friend’s dinner party in Kaneohe. Shay, feeling under the weather had stayed at home. He insisted on her going to the dinner without him, and ushered her out of their

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apartment. “You never see them. I’ll be fine,” he said. On the way home, the car in front of her veered recklessly, slowed and swerved into her and both cars flipped over. She succumbed to her injuries at the hospital an hour later. Shay never stopped blaming himself. In the years that followed, he became a broken man. He had attempted suicide once at a Waikiki hotel but was thwarted by a security guard. He became an alcoholic, and his work began to decline. Eventually, he was laid off from his job, and he was forced out of his apartment. As he laid on a floor mattress in the living room at a friend’s house, the darkened logo hung over him like a shadowy cloud, and rotated slowly. It had once been a vibrant green, but since Joyce’s car accident, it had turned black. It’s outlines became brittle and there were empty bottles embedded in its base. “What do you want?” he growled to it. “I’ve hit rock bottom. Is that what you wanted to see?You reflect everything in my life, absorbing everything I do. Like some twisted voyeur. Why don’t you just leave me alone? Get out of my life. Quit reminding me!” he slurred. The room spun out of control as he sat himself up to take another long pull from a plastic bottle of

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vodka. He set the bottle down and pulled on the cord attached to his friend’s laptop. He flipped it open and its screen lit up. Slowly, little lines, shapes and text appeared within that blast of white light. When his eyes focused, he saw that he was still logged in to his email and there was a message. When he clicked on the email, he saw that it was from Logocentral.com and that it had arrived only a few minutes prior. The message read, “Dear Mr. Shay Lensfield, we understand that you are dissatisfied with your logo. We here at Logocentral understand how important it is for a symbol to reflect any company, object, idea or person faithfully while setting it apart from all of the rest. Rest assured that we will take the appropriate measures to update and streamline your logo in a way that you can identify with. Regards.” Shay began typing, “Who are you? Are you some guardian angel? Are you in charge of my life?” The response came instantly. “No. We merely reflect it. It is every human’s desire to claim ownership over all aspects of our lives. Even if it doesn’t truly belong to us. Whether you are scrawling your name on a wall, or carving your name into a heart on a tree, or writing your name on a painting. A logo is an extension of these acts. We provide you with an identity by distilling your life into a single symbol. It

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is up to you what you do with this symbol. You are in control of your own life.” Shay replied. “You saw it happen? Joyce’s accident?” The reply came. “We are reevaluating the mnemonic value of your symbol. We understand it is a painful time for you. Within the current context there are many properties of the current logo that you may be averse to. We are working on this and assure you that there will be no painful reminders of your recent loss.” The bathroom light went on. Shay’s friend, Ryan flushed the toilet and stepped out into the living room. “You alright?” he asked. “Man. Your logo’s pitch black. Everything okay with you?” Shay answered over his shoulder. “I’m fine. Just checking some emails,” he said. “Thanks.” Ryan lingered in the doorway,” Hey man. If you ever wanna talk, don’t hesitate. I’m here for you,” he said, and lightly hit his chest with his fist. “Thanks,” said Shay, not looking up. “Get some sleep” said Ryan. He walked heavily and sleepily to his bedroom and closed the door. Shay tilted another sliver of vodka into his mouth and continued writing. “Are you God?” he typed.

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“Just a designer.” “Who do you work for?” “You are my primary client.” “Why doesn’t everyone have a logo?” “Not everyone needs one.” “I can’t seem to get over Joyce. I feel like giving up. I tried killing myself by jumping off a balcony. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know which way is up.” “Shay,” the email reply said. “These problems can be addressed. I know that it is normal for a designer to dismiss a client’s ideas. It can be very offensive when this happens. I assure you this will not happen here. For example, even if your thoughts of suicide are not relevant to our visual solution, given your unfortunate situation, we will make an extra effort to be considerate of all emotional tripwires. Our process will be a collaborative and delicate process. Regards. “ Shay began sobbing quietly. A teardrop fell on the letter O. The vodka had a firm grip on his senses and it weighed on him heavily. “Will I ever love again?” he wrote. Minutes passed with no response and Shay felt the correspondence had come to an end. He was about to log out when new reply appeared in his inbox. “This is a very difficult question. Although

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we will do everything in our power to update your logo in a way that satisfies all of your criteria, the reality is that there is no such thing as a magic logo. No matter how well designed a logo is, it cannot save a poorly conceived enterprise from failing. This is not to say that you yourself are heading such an enterprise, this is just to emphasize that a logo is only one part of an entity’s success. Conversely, a good logo will always help a good company, product or person reach its full potential. Rest assured that your new logo will be a good one. How you fare with it is entirely up to you. I’ll be in touch with you. Take care.” Shay looked back at his logo and saw that it was now a black cube. It had stopped rotating and was fastened solidly to the air. He crawled back onto his mattress and stared at its black, square undercarriage and drifted off to sleep.

* * * When Shay awoke the next morning, he noticed that the logo was different. It was bolder and more rounded. It’s color palate was muted, but there was potential for new additions to the color scheme. It was a rough draft, he concluded. He turned on the laptop and saw that there

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was already an email waiting for him. He clicked on the message. It read, “Hi Shay. New logo draft this morning. There’s a lot of room to play. From here, one can only go up. Currently, it’s very muted and nondescript. For now, I’ve omitted all references to your past. In time, we can reintegrate such forms. What we have now is a clean canvas. Things will fill in over time as you continue to live your life. Much luck. Will be in touch.” The logo rotated slowly, waiting for what he would do next. The first thing Shay did was throw out the vodka. He picked up after himself and took a shower. Over time, after many interviews and many disappointments, he found a new job. Occasionally, he dreamed of Joyce. She was usually swimming in a large Olympic pool and he could never get a good glimpse of her face. He worked. He ate. He slept. He grew older. All the while, the logo hovered overhead, changing as he himself changed and improving as he himself made personal improvements. It went on changing colors. It grew more intricate. Eventually, he fell in love again and it grew in luminosity. He got married to a musician named Margo who played the clarinet for the symphony; who’s bright and cheery disposition masked a deeper understanding of life. Together they had two children, Len and Claire who

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eventually grew up and had children of their own. Thus, his logo grew in scale and brightness. Still he thought of Joyce, and had dreams of her throughout his life. She came to him as a young woman although he himself had aged; haunting and seducing him until he woke up quietly in tears. Margo would pretend not to hear him and the logo incorporated this as well. Increasingly, it grew more and more elaborate and the hieroglyphics of his inner and outer life hung overhead until it took up his entire room and embraced him completely.

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