Our logo

The logo used on our Newsletter masthead was commissioned by the Society and designed by Bernard Reynolds: a clean, crisp piece of design which is, perhaps, a little more complex than it looks. I know this because one of my first jobs when I joined the Executive Committee as an observer was to tinker with the design. A bit like being asked to pull out the Koh-i-Noor from the crown jewels and give it a bit of a polish.

The modernist treatment of the eye - always a popular design element, perhaps indicating that the Society's main role was to keep a watch over the town - incorporates the sword, descending from the centre and indicating the many invasions, skirmishes and fights which are part of the town's history and the plough-shares, acting as lashes to the upper right of the eye to suggest our agricultural heritage. The iris incorporates the lion rampant and three ships' sterns of the Ipswich Borough coat of arms.

Our Chairman asked me, most importantly, to give these three hulls rudders. The first known depiction of a rudder separated from the hull on a ship - as opposed to a steering oar commonly in use during that era - is depicted on the back of the town's Great Seal; it was made some months after Ipswich was granted its Royal Charter in May 1200). This was a technological breakthrough worthy of a busy maritime port such as ours. It is possibly an early representation of the collier ships that would, in future centuries, become known as 'Ipswich Catts'. My solution was to insert a thin white arc into the hull profiles to suggest the separate rudder. It's not technically accurate, but suggests the innovation, so important to the history of the town. In redrawing the logo I realised the eyeball wasn't circular, so tightened this up and sharpened the fast-disappearing rampant lion shape. As with so many logos in voluntary organisations, the danger is that an original piece of artwork gets used by a printer, is lost and a copy later used which is then regularly re-copied. The only other incarnation of the logo I have seen shows the lashes/plough-shares more like the former than the latter: pointy. Don't anyone ask why the pupil is white, rather than black; the ghost of Bernard Reynolds will come to haunt you.

Anyway, the re-draughted logo was accepted by the Committee and I was able to use it on my first Newsletter masthead in July 2013. Not sure if anyone noticed, but it pleased me. It is there, albeit with a shorter 'sword', on Newsletter No. 2 in 1963 reviewed in Issue 196. I am delighted to continue its use as part of the story of the Society.