EPA logo is bigger than us!

The story of the EPA logo is much more than just shapes and letters designed to represent an agency. 

It all started as a conscious movement in the early 1950’s and 60’s to inform, protect and raise the alarming issues facing hard working farmers and factory workers about the dangers of harmful pesticides and deteriorating working conditions in our factories due to chemical exposures. In order to organize and get federally funded financial help to address these problems, President Nixon understood and agreed to create The Environmental Protection Agency. The formation of the EPA gave not only a voice to the rising movement, but volunteers who dedicated themselves to working for our government with little or no compensation. By going door to door, these now government employees had the backing of the U.S government, in helping and exposing the disastrous water conditions of our towns and villages as well as bringing to light the chemical waste being dumped by our factories in our rivers and fields.

“ The U.S. EPA was established to unify within one government agency a combination of federal research , monitoring, standard setting  and enforcement activities on order to protect human health and to safeguard the air, water and land upon which life depends.”

1975 the young and new Chermayeff & Geismar Associates were approached to develop and identity for this brand, the task was not only important to them but needed extensive audit and research knowledge in what this agency will be representing and how the identity will be communicated across and executed across all platforms. It had to respect the intent of the original emblem that has a flower, water and leaf symbol inside a circle, but it needed a fresh and adaptable design that could be recognized boldly and be reproduced in various sizes and single color usage. After an extensive audit C&GA, concluded “ the public knew the agency as the EPA and suggested that this should be adapted as a more direct short and communicative name.” A less depressing and grim photography strategy was also developed to visually represent the EPA with an image of hope and enlightenment, rather than negative and scary. But that was only half the battle the design agency has to fight. C&GA had to also convince and educate the internal government employees on the various usages and benefits of the new identity system. By creating a complete and detailed graphics standard system, they brought the brand to life in every format possible and in every execution they thought would help the internal EPA team communicate what they do, for who they do it and how they do it. Let’s clear something up, all of this was done before computers were used in design agencies, they did not have Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop in those days. As Tom Geismer explained himself in a recent interview with Ian Paget on his Logogeek Podcast (highly recommend listening to it), “We used photostats, color papers to make the mock ups to show how the identity system works. With Photostat and film which was a large camera was used to make a photo image of the logo in different sizes” 

But as administrations and politics changed throughout the 70’s and 80’s the EPA logo did suffer political setbacks and criticism. Not because of the design, but more about what it stood for. In 1981, Ronald Reagan’s appointee to head the EPA Ann Gorsuch Burford, demanded that the agency revert back to outdated older version of the logo. She felt that having an identity system that gave the rules on logo usage was too authoritative and bureaucratic. Telling people how and where to place a logo was a directive of government interference. Yes, you read it right, a Standard Manual Logo Guideline was too much of an organized system. 

Since then the EPA identity has again survived the trials and tribulations of several other Presidents and hostile administrations, but nothing has really come as close and reckless as the current Trump head of EPA, Scott Pruitt, feels that the current logo looks a “marijuana leaf” ! How he wants to change the identity into a Buffalo symbol that includes a Bible verse to reflect his faith. Good luck printed that in Black and White. He also wants the words EPA to be removed, because it represents too much what the agency stands for and its old fashioned values. 

The EPA may be once again under scrutiny for what it stands for, but the identity and the system developed to help understand the purpose and benefits of the hard working men and women of the EPA, cannot be diminished or forgotten. The value brand has changed the way we think and look at our standards of living. The simplicity of the iconography is a testament to an entire generation that helped and is still struggling to make our planet a better place for our kids and grandkids to live in. You cannot deny that our cities and rural country sides are cleaner and industrial sites much safer to work in than they did back in the 50's!

EPA’s identity and its standard graphic system has stood the test of time and design trends. Politicians and Presidential nominees have no place in attacking or bashing the merits of a logo design, that’s represented the conscious movement of an entire generation to get up and create important change and proven its merits more extensively than other Administration.

Sources: EPA Graphic Standards System, published by Standard Manual www.standardmanual.com& Logogeek, Ian Paget Podcast.