If you’re not familiar with Chandigarh, or not familiar with Le Corbusier, it’s worth a read. In the 1960s, the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier was hired to design the masterplan for the capitol complex of Chandigarh, India – the capital city of the northern Indian states of Punjab and Haryana. This masterplan included the design of a monument in which Le Corbusier first displayed the Open Hand emblem. This Monument may not have been the architect’s first time referencing the open hand, at least according to Jane Drew and Russell Walden. Nevertheless, it was the first time publicized in the world and eventually became part of his lifetime philosophy – “the hand to give and the hand to take,” or an openness to collaboration. Everyone must learn from and give back to the world; that was his ultimate goal.

Written a month before he died, Le Corbusier affirmed the Hand “was open to receive the wealth that the world has created, to distribute it to the people of the world and therefore it ought to be the symbol of our age” (The Open Hand, Russell Walden).

This ideology of course resonates with us and led us down a rabbit hole of internal studies. Can we abstract this cubist concept into one swoop of a pen? Remember those blind contour exercises in art class where you try to draw an object – like your hand – without looking at the pen and without lifting the pen from your page?

Let’s create a logo like that – something that conveys meaning but can be expressed with one swoop of a pen.

Pete: “plus it’s dope that you can make a gang sign out of it!”