Project: Flight Path logo
Client: The Common Acre
Role: Designer + Art Director
Flight Path is a project of The Common Acre, with support from the Port of Seattle, Urban Bee Company and 4Culture). It has turned scrub land around Sea-Tac International Airport into pollinator habitat to encourage better bee health.
Its inaugural art and education exhibit in 2014, involving 30–40 artists from the Puget Sound region, raised awareness inside the airport about this outdoor work.
“Honeybees and other pollinators are in real peril. Not uncoincidentally, our food system, which is rooted in long-distance transportation, is in dire straits. Our goal with Flight Path is to change that. At the nation’s 15th busiest airport, we will create a new model for land use, public-private partnership, and cultural engagement nation-wide.”
— Common Acre
DEVELOPING THE LOGO
In my research about bees, I discovered a diagram showing the path a bee makes when communicate to other bees where pollen can be found. Further research revealed that the paths planes follow in and out of Sea-Tac Airport create similar shapes. In trying to tell the story of how bees & humans are connected, this became a great source of inspiration for both the logo and the exhibition signage.
The following pages, below, are my early sketches for the Flight Path logo.
[Below: Final Flight Path logo, in black & white.]
INCORPORATING COLOR
Bees see many colors differently than we do; for example, orange looks like green to them. Blue, however, appears the same to both of us, which is why it became the logo’s primary color.
[Below: Final Flight Path logo, in color.]
Flight Path is a project of The Common Acre, with support from the Port of Seattle, Urban Bee Company and 4Culture. Thanks is also due to all Kickstarter contributors, who helped get this project off the ground.
With over two decades of experience in agency and studio settings, Amy Redmond is a visual designer who thrives on variety, creating print and interactive work for corporate and non-profit clients. To keep her creativity refreshed, Amy balances digital design with time in her letterpress studio (Amada Press) in Seattle. She also teaches at the School of Visual Concepts.
