Our logo: old and new

Our original logo, a ‘green man’ reading while leaning on his spade, was created by the company’s founders, Simon and Christel Chater. “We wanted something that spoke to our roots in the cause Green Ink supports: knowledge to improve agriculture”, says Simon. “It was Christel who had the idea of shaping the man and spade so that they formed the company’s initials: GI.”

Only later did we realize that we had tapped into a powerful archetype. In one guise or another, the Green Man crops up in most of the world’s great spiritual traditions. In Europe we know him from inn-signs or as a gargoyle – half human face, half plant, peering down at us from Gothic cathedrals; in mediaeval Christian literature he features as ‘the Green Knight’ and in Renaissance literature as Puck in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; in the Far East he is found in Buddhist, Jain and Hindu temples; in West Asia he is associated with the prophet Elisha and with Christ, while in the Sufi tradition of Islam he is known simply as ‘Al-Khidr’, the Green One.

The Green Man’s meanings are multiple. Among other things, he is:

• A symbol of death and re-birth, the cycle of these processes in the human spirit mimicking that of all nature
• A guardian (sometimes a frightening one) of the natural order and the forests
• A bearer of hidden knowledge – knowledge that renews and transforms its recipients, pointing them in a new direction.

Being ‘under the sign’ of the Green Man has served our company well. So when the time came to update our logo, he had to continue to be part of it. Our redesign thus retains his image, but in a simpler, more abstract form. We believe our clients will soon associate this new logo with the same commitment to quality that attaches to our old one.