Symbol Series

The Story Behind the Designs

What do you think of when you see a sword? A bow and arrow? A book?

Why do we identify ourselves by our Hogwarts House, or by what class we’d be in a fantasy world?

The idea for this series came from thinking about how we make associations with symbols, and how we use symbols and archetypes to identify and explore aspects of who we are.

That process of association, identification, and exploration can mean cosplaying a character with a vastly different personality than yours, really getting into role-playing your Paladin in D&D, or putting on a Skyrim Imperial symbol necklace because pretending you’re a warrior is the only thing that will get you to the gym. (That last one may or may not be a personal example…)

I find it fascinating that some symbols often have similar interpretations cross culturally — like a sword or a shield — but those same symbols can also have unique and deeply personal associations.

We can even have our own personally nuanced associations with very specific symbols, like the Hogwarts house crests.

So, I wanted to make a series of designs that invites that personal association. I wanted to make designs that present simple, open-ended symbols that can mean whatever it means to the person looking at it — without having to be tied to a specific game or show or fandom.

Part of me — secretly/not so secretly — likes the idea of two people looking at the same symbol, and having the opportunity to talk about what it means to each of them.