I Finally settled in on a look for the IMS Logo. This Logo was designed in 1977 when I formed Image of the Mind Studios. It started out as simply Image of the Mind. Then when I moved to Boston it became Image of the Mind Productions. Then when I moved to Hollywood and tried to set up a second office there, it became Image of the Mind Studios.
For years I struggled with how to include the word Studios into the Logo, because that threw the balance out of wack. So I included the word Studios with the text design and when I carved that into the stake sides on my 1961 Corvair Rampside truck, I eliminated the star. That solved the balance problem, because the star would not fit on the panel I was carving.
But I still could not come up with the graphic details I wanted for the Logo. I tried an assortment of variations but none of them worked very well. For one of my film productions I tried creating a few different Logo trailers. None of them are what I want as the image that the world would see. When I was experimenting with the logo for film, I decided to have a star made out of crystal (although I haven't done that yet). My plan is to take that crystal star and spin it, letting it wind down to a standstill. once it starts to slow down, I want to have the remaining logo design components dissolve/fade up into it. Well, something to that effect, maybe a variation thereof. I'll work on that after I get my editing bench up and working again.
Back In '77 I took out an ad in Variety announcing the introduction of Image of the Mind Studios, but it was not the kind of add that was intended to attract attention, it was more spiritual in nature. Maybe sometime I'll post it here.
So about a year ago I started playing with the Logo, based on what I was doing with text for The Gnomes of New Hope. I came up with numerous variations, but this one satisfies me the most. It has color I like, the inferred distribution of light and color and the sub title "From Concept, To Form, And Beyond" which just about says it all in terms of the creative process that Image of the Mind Studio is engaged in. I'm not entirely satisfied with the clarity of the Star in the center of the Logo, and there are a few other adjustments to be made, but that can be rectified in future editions.
About the Star; it started out with a cross, the symbol of Christianity. But then I changed it into a sword, partly as a result of being offered membership in the Templar degree, but that's another story. The Star beams forth from that symbol as the source of all life and the creative force. It divides the title Image of the Mind in half, basically an image in the mind. An image being in the spiritual degree and the mind being the form in which that image manifests. It is the combination of the spiritual force merging with the tangible form of the mind, which ultimately controls the natural degree of the body, where concepts take form and can then become useful by going beyond into application. So that is the correspondential understanding of what the Logo and sub-title stand for. Adding Studios was simply a way to identify the many components that have individuality and must be in place for the whole to exist, much the way we have a body consisting of many components both internal and external. So studios does not refer to multiple external businesses, it refers to multiple internal components of one studio.
