This video simply came to me while working on another video that I knew was too ambitious to get done before its deadline.
Earlier this week I had some insight into what my logo meant. Before, I had no clue, but simply made it as it was, knowing its meaning was hidden to me. I felt I finally had cracked the code. Therefore, I thought it would be a good topic for a simple video.
This project is due on September 2, 2024.
These are things I must do between now and then: Write script.Assign shots to script.
Film shots.
Edit the video.
Create a good voice over.
Get shots correct.
Add music.
Color-grade.
Shoot outro.
Create thumbnail.
Post video to YouTube.
Make a post about it on Instagram.
How did I design the Autodidact logo?
One of my engineering sketch pads, which a trace of the logo and a bunch of things that make it look like I drew it and it was difficult.
At first, I wanted my brand to look and feel extremely classical.
Me talking to camera.
It was going to be called The Quixotic Autodidact.
Show Logo with “Quixotic” before autodidact in a classical font and I begin deleting it.
I liked both its sound and meaning.
Me talking to the Camera.
The word “quixotic” comes from the character Don Quixote.
Show cover of the book.
In the novel, he imagines that windmills are giants and tries to defeat them.
Show pictures of the pages in the book if they have illustrations. If not I’m sure you can find a scene from a movie.
hence “quixotic” means:
exceedingly idealistic; unrealistic and impractical.
Show definition on e-ink monitor.
For example, "a vast and perhaps quixotic project” like killing a windmill.
Show definition again and zoom to example.
Or the ideal self education, which is also a lofty and unrealistic goal.
Now paste a post-it sticker on my monitor and have it say my version. , “A comprehensive Self-education is …”
Using the windmill as the symbol for the ideal self-education, the logo would have been this: a windmill formed out of a Q and A.
Show a collage or a bunch of images of sketches of what I wanted.
But, after much thinking, and some talks with my brother, I felt I should eliminate “Quixotic” and go with the simplicity of “Autodidact.” After this and still limited by the classical aesthetic.
Me talking to camera.
The best idea I could come up with was an “A” that was formed from an open book.
Have a book in the shape of the logo I wanted to make fade into one of my rough sketches.
I wanted the brand to have a deep resonance, which I thought classicism could provide,
Talking to camera.
But I also wanted to have freedom, energy, and edge, which I felt it was missing.
Talking to camera.
I began searching my mind for inspiration.
Talking to camera.
There were two things that kept resurfacing in my memory.
Talking to camera.
The first was an idea I had while listening to Rick Rubin discuss his book cover on Joe Rogan.
Rick Rubin on JRE:
I thought it was smart how he discreetly used a powerful symbol. He knew it’d work on people’s psyche’s whether they knew its history or meaning, or not.
(Maybe after these words you can go to the clip where Joe talks about how he likes the cover , but thought it was a record.)
Images of the monad, maybe fading into the cover of his book.
Seeing his method for the book, I wondered if he did the same thing with his podcast “Tetragrammaton.”
Show Tetragrammaton cover.
… And he did.
Show what google says of the logo.
I felt that if I could also find a historical symbol for my brand then I could maybe give it that deep resonance I hoped for.
Talking to camera.
The second thing I remembered was Robert Greene talking of the success of his 48 Laws of Power. [Show clips if I can find them].
Fade into one of these clips without audio from me talking to camera.
I loved what he said because I knew it was true.
Talking to camera.
As a kid, the first adult book I read was his 50th Law.
Show the book..
It very much looked like a secular Bible.
Show its bookmark and gold lining.
I remember my family always making comments about how I was reading something dangerous; how they wanted me to stop and were worried.
Talking to camera.
Of course this made me more intrigued.
Talking to camera.
After that I found myself sneaking away in book stores with a copy of the 48 Laws of Power.
Show the book somehow. Maybe go to Barnes and Noble and film it.
Will now probably have to just flip the the pages of it that I have in PDF form on my computer or e-ink monitor. Since I would like color on these maybe it woul be best to do this on laptop.
I would read a bit of it and feel like I was doing something terrible, but I was addicted to its feel and look. I loved its colors and the designs on its pages.
Me talking to camera, but when I get to description of it I can show footage of the book and me flipping through its pages.
From this I learned how I could elegantly use design in order to make something good feel a bit sinister. I thought this could help me capture energy and edge in my design.
Talking to camera.
Something I felt a brand about the highest ideals and virtues needed, in order to not feel too academic, holy, or pretentious.
Talking to camera. Fades into new logo with cool violent looking footage running behind it in black and white. Maybe an animation of me writing to be continued like graffiti.
In the next video, I’ll show how I actually began designing the logo and I’ll explain its meaning…
Maybe write this formatted like a poem on screen at end.
Video 2:
Now I didn’t want to dabble in as overt occult imagery as rick rubin did. that felt a bit scary to me. But I did want to use his method as inspiration so I began looking for deep symbols that could maybe convey what I wnted for Autodidact.
After doing some research I found this alchemical symbol made by Sir Isaac Newton . To him it expressed the pursuit of all knowledge.
I liked it and took it as my inspiration.
Ultimitely though I made a few changes.
I took off the outer circle beacsue I still wanted the shape to be an A, even if it wasnt obvious. I thought it would be noticed by the subconscious and apprieciated.
Also as I played around with it, I just didnt’t like it as much with the circle as big as the square.
For some reason I liked it smaller and centered. At the time I was just trusting my eye and intuition. Now I think i know why.
So here is the logo.
I really like it. BUt I never knew what it meant. Which is really unlike me.
Every thing always has a deep symbolic meaning to me. An doften if I can find its deeper meaning I discard it as uninteresting.
MY logo though I knew I liked even though its meaning wasnt apparent.
After giving it more thought, this week I felt I figured it out.
The circle represents the self. the individual. And the square the world and the physical.
The circle does not touch the sqaure because the self no matter all its striving will never aproach an understanding of the world. It is always working with incomplet information.
The triangle represents the Divine.
It encompasses all things. The self and the natural world, but also superces and encompasses them.
Emerson said that All of nature i oriented towards the development of charachter.
I belive this to be true, and it is the Divine Logos that serves as the ordering principle in nature and raises all things upwards like a magnetic north for souls.
NAture is squard with the divine since it is an outgrowth of its being, but it is not divine and will never be able to encompass all of reality either. There will always be great question marks that
All in all this is what Autodidact encompasses. The journey of the self upward and its attempt to understand the surroundong reality it finds itself in.