SEMIQUINCENTENNIAL LOGO REVEALED

It is a very difficult word, Mr. Haviv said, veering gracefully around the pileup of prefixes that Congress chose to describe the 250th anniversary of American independence — fast approaching on July 4, 2026.

He said semiquincentennial just twice in an hourlong interview about designing graphics for the occasion, each time speeding through its seven syllables — semiquincentennial, semiquincentennial — as if hoping to limit the linguistic sloppiness inflicted on his otherwise sleek operation.

Mr. Haviv, 49, is a partner at Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv, the design studio behind logos for NBC, Mobil and New York University, as well as the star emblem that represented the nation's bicentennial in 1976. The studio was contacted in March by the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, the group established by Congress to organize a nationwide commemoration and celebration of the milestone.

 

The logo, unveiled on Monday, is a continuous red, white and blue ribbon that swoops through the number 250 — neatly sidestepping the semiquincentennial conundrum. America floats above in custom serif text.

It's almost an impossible construction, Mr. Haviv said of the design, which twists around itself like a Möbius strip. I think that has an additional level of meaning, because bringing people together today is almost an impossible task, but the result is beautiful.

The design was, naturally, a democratic process. All 14 members of the studio threw out ideas, suggesting stars, gradients and shades of purple. The team settled on the idea of a festive ribbon like the ones that adorn parade floats and Medals of Honor, and gathered to present sketches to one another in June.

It's a humbling moment, because you come to it with your ideas, and you love the things that you've created, Mr. Haviv said. And then somebody will say, Well, it looks like a body part that you don't want it to look like.

They worked through hundreds of sketches by hand, then transported the design into Adobe Illustrator to agonize over details like the curvature of the ribbon in its bottom right corner. The logo was digitally rendered on T-shirts, sheet cakes, coins and baseball caps before its final version was presented to the commission in July.

Rosie Rios, the chair of the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission and a former U.S. treasurer in the Obama administration, said she did not expect every American to love the design. What we do hope is that people can think about this as a way to see themselves, and see their state, and see their story in some way reflected.

To read the complete article, see:
A Logo to Unite America? Good Luck. (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/04/style/america-250-anniversary-logo-design.html

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
LOOSE CHANGE: APRIL 2, 2023 : U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission Rebooted (https://www.coinbooks.org/v26/esylum_v26n14a35.html)

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