The Evolution of Principia

I would like to share some interesting behind-the-scenes images from Stefan Eriksson regarding how the Principia logo came to be. This is a timeline of how the Principia logo evolved.

1. The iconic Principia logo, designed by the very talented Stefan Eriksson from Sweden. The logo was designed to look like a physics/math diagram straight out of a textbook, and the orange was chosen to be eye catching and unconventional.

2. Did you notice the hidden Spade before you saw this? How about the fact that the letters spell the words "The Ace of Spades".

3 The starting point. Stefan started playing around with existing mathematical diagrams with varying complexity.

4. We settled on varying the capitalization of the Principia title, but the diagram seemed unconnected to the theme of card magic.

5. Stefan tried to link it up by including playing cards at the intersection points. Not quite what we were looking for.

6. We hit upon the brilliant idea of having the lines in the diagram form the shape/sketch of a playing card. Stefan tried a Queen, but eventually settled on an Ace of Spades!

7. Stefan attempts to hide the Spade by rotating it, to make it more of an Easter Egg for the observant eye!

8. Very close to the final result! The letters now spell The Ace of Spades.

9. Trying different placements of the logo and the title. I soon realized that the capital letters in Principia spelled RIP, so I had Stefan change that!

10. The final result. Beautiful.

Moral of the story: good ideas + working with talented people is a great formula for success. Ideas evolve for the better with good communication between people passionate about what they do, so don't be afraid of change!

Was there a particular sketch in these images that you liked? Let me know! Meanwhile, Principia (along with the gimmicked cards) is still available. Click here to get hold of a copy.