LOGOS and LOST: The Dharma Initiative gets a new logo redesign

At Perceptivity Studio, we love a good logo redesign...and we also love the television show LOST. So when we heard here that the show's fictional mysterious scientific organization, the DHARMA Initiative, had undergone a logo redesign resulting in a new logo, we had to take a look at it.












The original logo, according to the Lostpedia, is "based on an octagonal design incorporating eight trigrams surrounding a central symbol. The design of the logo was derived from a Chinese concept known as Bagua."

The new DHARMA logo has a fresh, modern look with an updated wordmark and simplified trigrams. The trigrams have also been rotated clockwise two positions...perhaps due to events from the season finale? The new DHARMA logo also loses the bold lines and hand-drawn aesthetic in favor of a streamlined 21st century look.

For those of you not familiar with LOST, a group of plane crash survivors land on a mysterious island which they discover was formerly occupied in the 70s by the noticeably absent DHARMA scientists. As the show progresses, we discover the group's "stations" littered across the island, each with a new DHARMA logo.

Here's the first DHARMA logo found, the Swan:

















And the last DHARMA logo found, the Orchid:

















The LOST team has been attending the Comic-Con convention for the past few years, and each year they do something fun and interesting. This year the DHARMA Initiative is supposedly attending the conference to "recruit new members." This publicity stunt, which is rumored to become an alternate reality game, was revealed in a commercial during a LOST episode from Octagon Global Recruiting (referring to the octagonal shape of the DHARMA logo), and they've hired actors to man the booth and administer "eligibility tests." (The site was down when I tried it, but feel free to check back.)

They also unveiled their new logo at the conference. Nice job, DHARMA Initiative on your new logo. Namaste. :)