Figure 14.1: WWW14 Logo
Music
Variations on traditional Cherry Blossom song
Animation
When we asked our Japanese colleagues what the logo was meant to represent, we were told sakura, or cherry blossom. The cherry blossom festival takes place around May each year, the time of the conference. The Maiko (apprentice Geisha) dress elaborately to perform the Miyako Odori (cherry blossom dance) and the logo was a stylised representation of a Maiko. The Japan text was her hair jewelry and the three Ws were the cherry blossom on her kimono.
That gave us the idea of starting with the Japanese glyph for sakura and turning that into a Maiko and then from the Maiko to the logo.
We thought we would draw the kanji character for sakura as though it was being painted by a brush. That proved quite difficult but we finally achieved it by drawing a set of neighbouring lines representing the drawing by each hair of the brush, letting the lines thicken as though soaking into the paper before finally drying out. Figure 14.2 shows the process.
Figure 14.2: Japanes Writing
The early strokes are deliberately exagerated so the process can be seen.
Figure 14.3: Tokyo Opening Session