Idea for February 2025: recycling

OK, it’s not a new idea, but it’s not that old either. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it was first used in popular discourse by the Daily Telegraph in 1971.

 And that’s just a year after the recycling logo was designed. A fascinating story: an American architecture student called Gary Anderson entered a competition run by the CCA, a corporation that supported graphic design, to mark the very first Earth Day. He spent just a couple of days on it, and designed those familiar three arrows, which form a Möbius strip. The design won him a $2500 prize, which paid for a trip to Stockholm.

Few logos have made such an impact on the world – and I guess it helped make recycling a thing, a sort of non-corporate brand, adopted by the Daily Telegraph and then by billions of people afterwards.

I’m grateful to Lisa Cain on LinkedIn for the story and the image.