Symbol Design

As part of a class assignment, we had to construct and design a symbol to represent a chosen theme at random. My theme: Amelia Earhart

Mind mapping, along with written and visual research was collected

Earhart was not only an aviation pioneer, but a fearless leader who paved the way in various avenues such as fashion, education, and women’s activism. I learned that Earhart developed her own clothing line and was often seen wearing a scarf (for fashion and flight purposes), so I wanted to incorporate this element into my design.

Initial sketches

I explored various sketches of scarf designs, planes, different perspectives of a pilot hat and goggles to symbolize a pilot identity.

Part 1: Putting it together

Feedback was given to incorporate a pilot hat and goggles with the main parts of a scarf to depict the propellers of a plane.

I added elements to complete the anatomy of a plane:

  • Wings.

  • 2 caved in strokes to represent the pilot cock pit.

  • 2 pronged arrow design on each caved in stroke -a decorative element on Earhart’s first plane.

  • Circles represent a common mechanical construction design.

  • A directional arrow at the top seen on a compass or pilot dashboard as flying involves using navigational tools to arrive at destinations.

Incorporating colour

We needed to create 1 black and white symbol and 1 colour symbol (2 colours).

I experimented with various colour combinations and finalized with black & purple. Black paired best with purple but also representative of pilot hats. Purple was chosen as a colour to symbolize women’s movement/activism. Earhart embodied this initiative: advocating for equal rights, rejecting social norms, and promoting women.

Black & white drawn version
Colour Symbol made with construction paper

Part 2: Vectorizing the symbol

After submission, I gained additional feedback to make changes to the symbol producing a finalized design

  • Simplified the directional arrow.

  • Reduced spacing between elements.

  • Larger wings, googles, and pilot hat.

  • Made revisions to the scarf.

submitted version
finalized version