Small creatures.
Big possibilities.

I wanted to create a logo that represented my use of insects to promote scientific curiosity—entomology as a gateway to science.

I have always been fascinated by the story of how we got here. One of my favorite eras is humanity’s awakening from the Dark Ages into the Renaissance: a period when people began to challenge superstition and test the status quo; when the pursuit of knowledge became intertwined with art and the humanities; and when some began to recognize that humanity was capable of more—that we had once achieved greatness and could do so again. We rediscovered the lost knowledge of antiquity, then surpassed it.

Look at the world around you. This is where it began—again.

Much of the Renaissance was shaped by one family: the Medici. They were many things, but more than any other family of their time, they made a practice of supporting genius. Their patronage helped advance the work of Donatello, Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, and, later, Galileo. Many of the Renaissance’s greatest accomplishments had Medici support behind them.

This was the era that produced Galileo. He helped set in motion what we now call modern science. He turned the telescope toward the heavens and opened our eyes to our place in the cosmos. Once our eyes were opened, we could never go back.

This logo is my tribute to a select few who helped shape the story of science—and therefore the human story. I brought together the quantum world, represented by the atom; life, represented by strands of DNA; and the cosmos, represented by six celestial bodies.

Those six spheres echo the Medici family crest. The top sphere represents Jupiter. The bottom represents Earth—Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot,” from which Galileo observed Jupiter and its moons. I kept the four middle spheres red, echoing the original Medici crest. They represent Ganymede, Io, Europa, and Callisto—the four Galilean moons Galileo named the Medici Stars in honor of his patrons.

I wrapped all of it in the shape of an insect—my contribution to the story.