The American Mandarin Society is a new organization composed of a younger generation of Mandarin scholars who have studied, researched and lived in Greater China. It needed a mark that would reflect its scholarly background, but also point to the group’s modern, youthful focus.

The American Mandarin Society (AMS) came to me with traditional imagery of the Chinese scholar. Cranes were once the mark of those who had passed the rigorous tests to become a government official in imperial China. AMS hoped to use this symbolism in their branding, but at the same time wanted a modern, clean look that would represent their younger constituency.

This logo uses the imagery of the red-crowned crane drawn in a style that invokes traditional Chinese brush painting with a modern twist. The type treatment is a juxtoposition of the traditional top-down, right-left Chinese character placement alongside a sans-serif English title.