A slightly better version of Ambivalence that was done in July 2006. These changes predate the original post, and I almost implemented them before deciding to keep the 2002 design.

Off topic: I have been working on something else I hoped would have been published by now, but completion has taken a lot longer than expected. Hopefully that will be next.

About a week prior to posting the original illustration (Apocalypsemoticon) I decided to give it a 3D effect and this was the result. The original illustration was posted anyway because the simpler logo made a better first rendition. The alternate name Apocalypticon was favored for this adaptation. Although it’s not perfect, I have better things to do than revisit this and tweak it to the fast moving target of “perfection”; I’ll settle for the larger and slower moving target of “acceptable”.

Meanwhile the apocalypse grins and bears arms.

This was inspired by current events and the word Eurabia.

I came up with the motto “invited in adversity” as a play on the European Union’s official motto of “united in diversity”.

Conceived and Illustrated on April 1, 2006. Some slight modifications today.

This isn’t necessarily about environmentalism.

The icon, font and style are from Windows XP. I decided to use the more familiar default background color of Windows 2K since the background color in Windows XP is rarely seen as it sets a wallpaper by default. The globe is a trace from some random image of earth I found online. In retrospect I probably should have looked for a better satellite image to trace. The one I used was low resolution and I wasn’t sure if I was going to use it, and then the trace was done, heh. I figure it’s good enough. I spent a few hours getting the bin icon to look as accurate as possible and based it on the 48×48 image. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good.

Conceived between Fall 2004 and January 2005, illustrated March 2006.

When I came up with this one, I had in mind a more detailed design with additional symbology. Once I had done the basic design, I found that I liked it even better. It conveys the message more powerfully, and adding to it would just distract and thus subtract its effect. Less is more and all that.

Conceived November 2005, illustrated December 2005.

The upper left triant represents America / The West
The upper right triant represents China / The East
The lower triant represents Islam / The Base
The center pivot represents Israel / The Catalyst

Note: As far as I know, no word exists that is defined as “an arc of 120 degrees that is one third of a circle” so I had to make one up. Triant is a neologism, a logical alteration of the words quadrant and octant. I think a submission to wiktionary and/or merriam-webster is in order. I suppose that I could have omitted the word or replaced it with another word like “portion”, but that would be no fun. Anyway this digression has little to do with the apocalypse.

Variations on the name: Apocalypse Emoticon, Apocalyptemoticon, Apocalypsicon, Apocalypticon.

Although it is open to interpretation, I decided to keep the original title of ambivalence as that was my feeling at the time I created this. On a fundamental level it represents something of a dualism, like a modern yin-yang. Ambivalence, conflict, concurrency, neutrality, etc. It can mean anything you want it to mean, really, I’m quite ambivalent about that.

Shown here as illustrated in Spring 2002 with a minor edit from Fall 2003. It was originally conceived in Fall 2001.

In 2002 I created some shirts based on this design. I found suitable red and blue t-shirts and brought them to a seamstress and had them combined into half-red half-blue t-shirts. I then had the black and white part silk-screened over the center of the shirts. Although the first one had a minor misprint, not surprising since it was a unique request, the others came out reasonably well. I don’t recall having seen any other t-shirt with a seam down the middle, so the process required extra care in order to have the print properly aligned.

The inspiration for this design was an evolutionary process that originated with a mismatched pair of socks and culminated into this. A narrative that I am sarcastically sure you have great interest in reading.

Seriously though, I am quite fond of this one and I will probably work with it some more. Expect it to come up again.