Athena - Logo Design

Here’s my wordmark and icon design for ATHENA: the greek goddess of wisdom, handicraft, and warfare.

Athena is recognized through many symbols:
- Her SHIELD represents her protective power. - Her HELMET + SPEAR symbolizes that wisdom and strategy are the key to victory in war. 
- And the OWL stands for wisdom and watchfulness.

All symbols I considered using as inspiration for the wordmark. But my creative process eventually led me to the city this Greek goddess took her name from: Athens.

As not only is the Parthenon (found on the Acropolis of Athens) a former temple dedicated to the goddess, whom the people of Athens considered their patroness. In classical times, Athena’s owl was also the emblem of the city.

Plus the Parthenon also lead to my color choice of gold. As the temple once housed the ‘Athena Parthenos’: a lost massive chryselephantine (gold and ivory) sculpture of the Greek goddess.And gold not only represents material wealth and luxury; the color is also generous and giving, compassionate and loving, the benefactor or patron, sharing its wisdom, knowledge and wealth with others. All things that seem to suit the goddess Athena well.

he column on the 2nd photo is part of the British Museum building. Though its design is heavily based on the temple of Athena Polias at Priene.

This logo is part of my design exercise to create wordmarks for each of the twelve Olympians from ancient Greek mythology.

Gilles Verschuere
Logo, and brand, and type design! Oh my!

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