Hearts It Is

One time on Valentine's Day I made a heart out of rocks in my garden. A client came in furious: "You have to take that out right now." At first I thought she was joking. "It's AWful," she said. Her jaw was set. Her eyes were hard. What could be more loaded than a heart?

Many massage therapists probably go through the following process with their logos: I could use an image of a body, but what age would it be, and what gender and what proportions? I work on people who use wheelchairs and people who have missing limbs; should the body be standing, and should it have all its limbs? I could use an image of bones, but that's just one part of a whole complex body. Many of us turn to other symbols we like, or interesting squiggles and abstractions. 

All bodywork starts with deep care---my care for your body and your care for yourself.  We may not get very far if either are missing, but we can do a lot with both. A lot of effective businesses aren't that way; a businesswoman could produce a great product and customer service because she loves money, not people. You can fake empathy, or hire people who have it. But it is really hard, I think, to be an effective therapist if you lack honest empathy.  Hence the heart of my logo.    

At the same time, if neither of us think of you as a machine, that will be a bit tricky too. You may be a very complex and unique machine, but some things are predictable and repeatable. We're looking for and at those things, hence the cogs and gears.  

It would be funny if I were a really mean person using this logo; I like that it holds me to a particular standard. Last week a client said, "I love your logo....it's so...perfect."  You can imagine how happy that made me. I thought, "I'm being who I want to be for her."  

Picking a logo is like picking a baby's name---opinions make things complicated. All I can do is hope to live up to the logo, and to help you in the way I would want to be helped: with good care and good reason.