There are many things to be jealous about when it comes to Europe. One thing I'm jealous of are the awesome symbols most European cites have. Many have been adapted from coat of arms to become simplified icons, while others retain and older feel. Many also have back stories such as Valencia's (top left) supposedly during the night an army was preparing for a secret invasion of Valencia when a bat awoke the king, after waking the king could somehow see the invading army in the distance and was able to fight and save the city from being sacked. And so the bat was a hero. That's at least how one legend goes. It's to bad American cities don't really have an equivalent, we do have seals but they are mostly poor quality. There are a few nice ones but they're the exception, not the rule. New York city has a seal but It seems obvious the unofficial NYC symbol is Milton Glaser's I (HEART) NY logo. I don't know of any other US city that has a unofficial logo in the same way New York does, but hopefully the day will come when US cities won't have to be jealous of European ones and will have have some cool official city symbols of our own.
top: Valencia and Florence. bottom: Bilbao, Frankfurt, Copenhagen, Hamburg.
No comments:
Post a Comment