Engraving, embossing, printing, stamping, these are all a way of making your mark on the world. My logo is borrowed from my family history, here is my logo story.
“Why did you become an architect?”. This question flashed out at me from Instagram and the responses were noble ones. “To change the world”, “to leave it in a better place”, “to leave a legacy”, “to help combat climate change”. The main reason why I am an architect today is because I had a graphics teacher who believed in me when I was in high school. In that graphics class we worked on a logo for our future architecture practices. 20 years later, with thousands of logo iterations piling up around me, I realised that the answer lay in my 21st birthday present, a monogram on a gold chain, made by my mother.
The story of my logo starts in 1882 when my great-great grandfather, John Edward Piper moved to Launceston, Tasmania. John Edward Piper was a watchmaker, who was soon joined by his son, Julius Norman. Julius began honing his skills as a hand engraver. Some days his work would include script writing on copper plates which were used to print out blank cheques. The engraving had to be done backwards so that when it was printed off the copper plate, it appeared the right way around. Together, John Edward and Julius set up shop in Launceston.
Julius Norman had a son, Alister Graeme Piper, my grandfather, known as Papa to his grandchildren. Papa was a jeweller and his skills in jewellery repair and design complemented the business. He brought with him his steady hands, his eagle eye for balance and precision and his unrelenting persistence for perfection. In 1957, J.N. Piper and sons was formed, and this is where my memory begins.
My mother, Alison, worked with Papa to develop a small retail section, learning the skills of hand engraving and jewellery repair. It was here that she learnt the art of creating a monogram. The process of creating a monogram begins with finding the right combination of letters within a stencil book. To do so, you must first decipher a code:
To find a monogram, arrange the letters according to the position which they are found in the alphabet. Thus J.C.H becomes C.H.J.
Once found, a stencil of the monogram is made. The monogram is made from a single sheet of metal. Holes are drilled between each of the letters before a fine jewellers saw is placed through each drill hole to cut out the monogram. This process is referred to as 'saw piercing'. A decision must be made on the size of the monogram, so it looks correct within the composition of the lower neck. For my 21st birthday, my mother gave me a small gold monogram with the letters E and B.
Today, this is the image I remember, my Papa sitting over his work bench. I remember him turning and smiling as three small children came creeping up the stairs. That world of manual arts was magical.
As I scribbled and traced over iterations of logos, I remembered the monogram. It came hurtling back to me like a ghost from the past. We carry these artefacts with us through life. We move to new countries with them, we store them away in storage rooms. Over time, we accumulate this load, this jingle jangle trail of 'just married' trinkets. Sometimes collections are formed, perhaps stacks of lanyards from when we went to festivals, or porcelain figurines from childhood. These items, no matter how trivial, signal to us that we have lived a life.
Occasionally, the time will come to bring one of these lucky artefacts back into the daylight. Often our clients want to bring things from their past into their new stories, into their new homes. Incorporating these artefacts in a curated way, allows for unexpected curiosities. In Sydney, I worked with a client to find a place for the door knob from their family home, a terrace in Balmain. I worked with the door supplier to find a home for it on the cellar door.
That is what I hope to do in my work, take those things that have led you to this point - the stories, the layers and weave new stories with them. It made perfect sense that the monogram should be the basis for EBA’s new logo. What artefacts are you bringing to this new chapter?
