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Health & Fitness

So Where Did That Apricot Logo Come From?

Pretend for a moment that you have decided to run for Los Altos City Council. You need to come up with a logo or brand or graphic...How?

 

Pretend for a moment that you have decided to run for Los Altos City Council.  Among a million other things, you need to come up with a logo or brand or graphic—something that identifies you, makes a statement for you, or brands you.

Should it be a photo, abstract drawing, cartoon, graphic of your name? What colors? What shapes? What to do? That was my challenge, and it was a vexing process; emphasis on process. I talked with my friends and colleagues, I looked around my house, I started seeing logos and brands everywhere; actually, they are indeed everywhere.

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In my case, we had a few false starts: the letters of my name, a vintage three-wheel trike (I happen to own a three-wheel bike) and close-up images of a bike, like handle bars etc. And each time we thought, “Eureka, that’s it.” But alas, it was not. It was not quite right. Meanwhile the clock was ticking away, and we needed something to put on our campaign materials.

So, I thought about Dr. Wayne Dyer’s advice in the Power of Intention, and about the sage advice of artists and writers everywhere. Start where you are, with what you know…so I looked out my balcony sliding-glass doors and asked, “What do I see?” Across the trees and across the road were the heritage apricot orchards of the Civic Center. Apricot trees, apricots! 

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That was it! Apricots—they are a perfect image of our history, our unique culture, our foundations. It was not about me, it was about us. Now we had it. And the quest began to find the perfect image of apricots. This search took us on another grand adventure into the land of apricot-everything images. Nothing felt right. So I turned to our own View Points Gallery and inquired about an artist who was expert at line drawings and, by the way, worked in watercolor. Risky business, watercolor. It does not duplicate with ease and can be difficult to work with in various media. But watercolor is truly beautiful, soft, delicate, yet visually powerful.

Fate smiled and we found Jane W. Ferguson. Jane was born and raised in England, where she worked as a nurse midwife. She moved to California with her husband and two sons and now paints full time. She was up to the challenge and drew the famous apricot branch we now see everywhere as part of our campaign. Matt at Minute Man Press in Mountain View designed the graphic circle around the apricots. The For All Generations motto is why I am running, and is my intention for Los Altos.

For more about my campaign, see anabelpelham.org

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