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How about a new symbol for the Spectrum of Autism?

Trainspotter

The 'Puzzle Piece' autism spectrum symbol designs (such as the ribbon) are thought of by many autistic people as inappropriate.

I do not have a 'piece missing', neither am I waiting to be solved.  I am me, with all my faults and attributes, but I am autistic.

So I was musing about a different design to indicate the Autism Spectrum.  There have been various 'spectrum' designs in the past - two which spring to mind are the 'Captain Scarlet' Spectrum organisation, and the Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon desgn.

I think the design of either of these could be adapted.  The Captain Scarlet one could have the Yellow 'S' adapted by removing the top bit, putting it into mirror image and then making the bottom bit into an 'A' for Autism (perhaps even putting the letters in the curvy bit.

The dark side of the moon could also be adapted, the Prism being changed to an 'A', indicating that from the 'white light' of everyone, there are a whole spectrum of people which make the whole.  I know there are copyright problems so they would have to be used as ideas only, and I know there are other ideas.

I particularly like the version below, just change the prism to an 'A' by extending the sides a bit and it is done!:

My main point is that I think there are many better ideas for a design to indicate a Spectrum, without something which some think of as offensive.

Has anyone got any ideas.  I will get the 'Captain Scarlet' design done how I am envisaging it, as I am not sure I am explaining it well, but as a circle it lends itself to a badge!

I look forward to any comments about this.

Parents

  • I like the tree avatar, it feels peaceful.

    I find a lot of the other logo's on this page so far make me feel ill - no offence to artistic skills - but because they're too busy or have too much contrast. Logo's should be simple. I understand the jigsaw piece because, for me, I always felt there was a piece missing of me, like everyone else was given a guidebook at birth but I didn't get one, but I never knew what it was, or that there even was one. And that missing puzzle piece seemed to connect to every other aspect of your life, but because it was missing, I didn't know what it was, and I couldn't ask other people about it because even though they had it, it was so integrated into their being that it didn't make sense to them what I was asking because it wasn't a separate thing. When I discovered my puzzle piece was "social imagination", my entire world suddenly all made sense.

    On "Are you autistic?" on Channel 4 last night, they had a graphic which showed the spectrum like a massively multi-nodal network almost resembling a brain. That looked great as an expression of autism to me, but I don't know how you'd simplify that into a symbol. It was like a neural network, so if you could somehow denote that there was something different about it compared to a neurotypical's?

    It might help if we brainstormed about what meaning we're trying to visualise with a symbol. What does autism mean to us and how are we conveying that meaning to others through a graphic? The jigsaw piece partially does this, because it's comparing people with autism to neurotypicals and essentially saying "we have a piece missing, the bit that processes social stuff to the degree that you do". This symbol caters both for NT's and people with autism - it shows the NT's that there's a really important (from their perspective) thing that we can't do ("social stuff"), and it's recognition to the people with autism because they feel there's a bit missing when compared to NT's.

    I'm not saying "use the jigsaw", I'm saying we already have this symbol, and it works for a reason, so if we come up with something different, it needs to describe autism in a similar or better way.

    We need to decide if the symbol is for neurotypicals, to help them understand autism, or for people with autism, to convey what it means to us to have (and celebrate?) autism, or for something that bridges the gap and caters for everyone. What meaning are we trying to symbolise?

Reply

  • I like the tree avatar, it feels peaceful.

    I find a lot of the other logo's on this page so far make me feel ill - no offence to artistic skills - but because they're too busy or have too much contrast. Logo's should be simple. I understand the jigsaw piece because, for me, I always felt there was a piece missing of me, like everyone else was given a guidebook at birth but I didn't get one, but I never knew what it was, or that there even was one. And that missing puzzle piece seemed to connect to every other aspect of your life, but because it was missing, I didn't know what it was, and I couldn't ask other people about it because even though they had it, it was so integrated into their being that it didn't make sense to them what I was asking because it wasn't a separate thing. When I discovered my puzzle piece was "social imagination", my entire world suddenly all made sense.

    On "Are you autistic?" on Channel 4 last night, they had a graphic which showed the spectrum like a massively multi-nodal network almost resembling a brain. That looked great as an expression of autism to me, but I don't know how you'd simplify that into a symbol. It was like a neural network, so if you could somehow denote that there was something different about it compared to a neurotypical's?

    It might help if we brainstormed about what meaning we're trying to visualise with a symbol. What does autism mean to us and how are we conveying that meaning to others through a graphic? The jigsaw piece partially does this, because it's comparing people with autism to neurotypicals and essentially saying "we have a piece missing, the bit that processes social stuff to the degree that you do". This symbol caters both for NT's and people with autism - it shows the NT's that there's a really important (from their perspective) thing that we can't do ("social stuff"), and it's recognition to the people with autism because they feel there's a bit missing when compared to NT's.

    I'm not saying "use the jigsaw", I'm saying we already have this symbol, and it works for a reason, so if we come up with something different, it needs to describe autism in a similar or better way.

    We need to decide if the symbol is for neurotypicals, to help them understand autism, or for people with autism, to convey what it means to us to have (and celebrate?) autism, or for something that bridges the gap and caters for everyone. What meaning are we trying to symbolise?

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