Contemplation & Meditation

Beyond Earthly Sensations of Lifestyle Envy: Omnipotent Brand Mandala

Moving From the Physical to Spiritual: Transcendental Brand Awareness Mandala 2003

 I found these image in a book called Barnbrook Bible-the Graphic Design of Jonathan Barnbrook.  It's kind of hard to tell, but this image is comprised of tiny little logos and characters.  So once again, I don't have much to work with as far as identifying a single font used in the design.  I can clearly recognize that the Mobil logo exists within this design, so  I will analyze that.  Of all of the results I found on Whatthefont, the Mobil logo looks most like Standard CT Bold.  The hole in the b is not quite circular enough, though.  The font is a sans serif.  It is easy to read and recognizable, as it is used for advertising.  Blue is used for all of the letters except for "o," which is red.  Though I haven't thought of this before, I would guess that this could be used to represent a gas tank.  The logo color combination also ties the company to patriotism.

Mobil Logo

Standard CT Bold

Upon realizing that this image was made mostly of type logos, I was fascinated by it.  It is made to look like a mandala.  Some years back a group of Tibetan Monks came to the Krannert Art Museum and made a sand mandala live for people to view.  It took them something like a month to complete, I believe.  Anyway, the intricacy and concentration demonstrated was unforgettable.  After they completed the mandala, the finished product was displayed for a very short time before they dismantled it and poured all the sand away.  I think that their perspective on life and art in particular is so interesting and inspiring.  If you like this concept, you should go play around on Buddha Board's website.  I'm curious whether the artist was implying something deeper about American culture within this piece.