Does The Human Rights Cause Need A Logo To Succeed?

Can design help save the world? To some, the idea itself is a joke. To others, it's at least worth a shot: humanrightslogo.net is crowdsourcing logo designs for the basic concept of "human rights" in a contest ending July 31st. They've received over 3,000 submissions so far, and the winner will be chosen by a panel of human rights activists and "designers from around the globe." Sound ridiculous? Not to Google, Typo Berlin, and a bunch of other respectable organizations who are all partnering with the initiative.

If anyone can use it without permission does that sap its power?

A quick browse through the submissions reveals about what you'd expect from a crowdsourced creative endeavor: a lot of intriguing-but-middling entries, but no real genius either. (What, was Pentagram not available?) The site's hand-wavy copy ("Join the greatest creative challenge in history" -- er, really?) isn't doing them any favors either. Great design is a solution to a specific problem, and the best way to get great design is to articulate that problem specifically. "There is no globally recognized logo for human rights" is more of a circular statement in this context than a design problem. Why should there be a logo? The site doesn't really make a strong case, but it is an interesting question to consider.

The site claims that the logo will be free of copyright and licensing claims -- as it damn well should! But if anyone, anywhere, can use it, without asking for permission, does that sap its "symbolic power" (another cited reason for creating it)? On one hand, it's easy to imagine a cutesy little vector graphic that doesn't mean anything because there's no "thing" (group, organization, etc) behind it. Or, even worse: What if some awful entity or person (Qadaffi?) can just appropriate it at will? Who's stopping them?

On the other hand, it's just as easy to point out a "cutesy little vector graphic" that really does stand for something universal and good: the "recycle" icon. No one owns it, there's no organization or entity behind it, but everyone knows what it means and "everyone" (in theory) agrees it's a good thing for humanity. But even "recycling" is a concrete, mostly unambiguous action more than a noble abstraction. There are scores of books debating just what the hell "human rights" really means: philosophically, morally, operationally, politically, ad infinitum. Even if a human rights logo were as iconic as these, could it really enclose all that territory?

Food for thought. Out of 3,000-plus entries, at least some of the designers must be considering this stuff. Even if the contest fails, that's a worthwhile end result in itself.

[Top image: An entry by DimKarteris]