For my Pitch Presentation I had quickly pulled together some basic brand elements (Name, Logo, Colour and Typography). The presentation had a tight timeline, and I did not have time to research and ideate on these as I would normally do. I needed to add polish to these elements, delve deeper into their meaning and significance, before I could include them within my final brand. I also needed to add additional elements, such as brand values and tone of voice, to ensure I had a full set of brand guidelines for my project.
For the pitch presentation, I had created a basic jigsaw puzzle piece logo for my brand. This is by far the most well-known symbol for Autism worldwide, so it made sense at the time. I had heard in the past that there was some controversy surrounding the jigsaw symbol, so before I decided to commit to it as my final, brand logo, I wanted to dig deeper into this and understand it better.
The jigsaw logo was first created for the National Autistic Society in the early 60s by Gerald Gasson. Gerald was the parent of an autistic child and felt the puzzle piece represented the puzzling nature of the condition. He also added a crying child inside the puzzle piece to represent the suffering he felt the condition caused.
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282243906_A_response_to_'Notes_on_a_Puzzle_Piece'
Just looking at this logo made me feel uncomfortable, and reading the reasoning behind the design only added to this. It was clear that both the understanding of Autism as a condition and views around it have moved on significantly since the 1960s, and a logo like this would not be suitable today.
I then looked for the views of Autistic people themselves about the jigsaw piece, and the majority of people felt that it represented that they had a missing piece or they needed a final piece to complete them. There were alternate views, from people who felt that their autism diagnosis had acted as the piece that completed the puzzle (a viewpoint that resonates with my personal experience). Another point raised was that it was also a logo used by the American charity Autism Speaks, which is controversial for many reasons. Autism Speaks promotes the need to find a cure for autism, a view that many autistic people disagree with, and they have also produced publicity material which could only be described as ableist and prejudicial to autistic people. It was clear that the overall consensus was that the Jigsaw piece has many troubling aspects and was unpopular amongst autistic people.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/autismspeaks
Based on this research, I have decided that the jigsaw piece will not be the logo for my brand, its negative connotations significantly outweigh its strong recognition as a symbol of Autism.
Following on from my research into the jigsaw puzzle piece, I decided to look at what symbols had been suggested and used to replace it.
The first symbol I found was the Ribbon. This symbol is often used to represent Autism Awareness, and I have seen it used here in Northern Ireland before; however, it is nearly always paired with a jigsaw motif within the ribbon itself, bringing with it all of the connotations of that symbol, so this also does not feel like a good fit for my brand.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_Awareness_Campaign_UK
The final symbol I discovered had been designed for Autism Pride in 2015, and had been designed by autistic people themselves,. Itwas the infinity symbol, chosen to represent the fact that no one person will have the same experience. There are two versions of the infinity symbol in this context: a rainbow version to include all neurodiversity (Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, etc.) and a gold version for autism specifically (AU, the chemical symbol for gold being the first two letters of the word Autism).