People often compliment us on our logo and it makes me happy that it resonates with so many . Like any of my tattoos there is a whole story behind its origin, but it is one I rarely tell. I usually do not share stories where I hear voices in my head in fear of turning people off. The last thing I want is for people to write me off as crazy and miss out on products that I put my heart and soul into. To clarify, throughout the day I will often hear my voice in my head. I believe this to be intuition, or possibly my subconscious communicating with my conscious mind. Wherever the voice stems from, I have learned to listen to her over the years; she really does know what she is talking about. Now that I have let my freak flag fly, back to the story of how the logo came to be.
I was feeling drawn to start my own herbal business out of the products I made for friends, family, and another herbal products company but the legalities and unknowns were extremely scary and deterring. I decided to arm myself with knowledge before jumping in, so I took a course from The Herbal Academy that taught FDA compliance and current good manufacturing practices. The first half of the course contained history lessons teaching about the origin of modern medicine. I do not do well with online courses as they are generally not engaging enough to keep my attention for long, couple that with long teachings and I start dozing off. The catch with this course is that you have to be able to pass a test at the end of each section before you are able to move on to the next lesson. I was really starting to just scan over the paragraphs and breeze through the tests just to get to the material I figured mattered most for starting my business. I began on the section of Greek mythology and I heard my voice in my head say, "pay attention, you are going to find your logo in this lesson."
The Greek lessons included Asclepius as the father of medicine. Asclepius is often depicted with a snake entwined staff, called the rod of Asclepius, as snakes symbolize healing and transformation. This icon remains a symbol of medicine to this day. Asclepius had daughters and they were all healers as well. When I came to read about his daughter Hygieia (Hygeia), I became intrigued. Hygieia was the goddess of cleanliness, "she was associated with the prevention of sickness and the continuation of good health. Her name is the source of the word hygiene." This really resonated with me as I wish to prevent sickness, keep people in good health and I have no knowledge of diagnosing once a person has become ill. When I saw the symbol for Hygieia was a chalice with a snake entwining the stem of the chalice I got goosebumps. Chalices are often a symbol of the feminine as they resemble the uterus, couple that with the healing snake it felt perfect!
I have been a bartender my whole adult life and over the years my regular customers have become a sounding board for my ideas. I took this notion of incorporating the Bowl of Hygieia into my logo to work and my friend/customer Chris suggested that it was only fitting if the chalice was a martini glass. It was perfect, still a chalice but represented me and all of my work. I found an online designer based out of Brazil to work on creating a logo that could be our brand. We work seasonally and with the moon cycles when creating products so having a moon depicted in our brand was important to me. The crescent moon in our logo is in the waxing phase, which is building energy, working towards a full moon. The designer decided to add a plant sprig to the martini glass and surround the whole symbol with leaves while incorporating a banner with our name at the base. It really felt like it tied all of the components together while encompassing our brand and mission. This creation was truly a team effort and we feel like it works to represent us and what are mission is; providing seasonal plant based remedies to keep people in good health.