After thinking about what it is that I do…  the “action” portion of the phrase “what you want the world to know”… and was fortunate to find the short domain name 2kno.com. That was a stroke of luck since four letter domain names that have a connection to anything that means something are all taken.  I  took Helvetica and a popular candy and came up with this. I probably won’t win an award but it works for me. When you see the logo, you may not think about the candy (you will now) but your subconscious mind might recall the feeling of something sweet.

I’m trying to think of when I first realized that a person actually had to design a logo and it was an important job. It was 1962. I was in high school and living in Haworth, New Jersey. My father worked for McGraw-Hill and had to commute to New York City every morning. My mother would drop him off at the train station and then take me to school.

One morning, we got to the station and a gleaming long black limousine was waiting there with a uniformed driver at attention next to it.  This was exciting! Who was getting picked up in a limo? Turned out, it was a neighbor of ours who worked at Lippincott and Margulies (L&M) who, according to my father, had been involved in the design of the new Chrysler logo. This is now known as the Pentastar logo that consists of an ingenious use of five triangles arranged so that the bases form a pentagon. I believe the man’s name was Al Downe. That logo has survived for many years and I’m in awe of it. My father explained when he got home from work that night (he spoke with Al on the train coming home) that the limo ride was to celebrate the fact that Chrysler had decided to go with that logo.

 Now that I think of it, there was an earlier instance of being aware of logos. In 1951 my father bought a new Ford coupe. We didn’t have it for long before the emblem on the hood was stolen.

I was 5 years old at the time and remember asking why someone would take that emblem. The response I recall was that people were using them to make belt buckles. I’m sure that was the first time I ever thought that about someone ”wearing” a company logo… something that is quite common now.