Bruce Schneier started the Individual I campaign last year with an interesting idea. All you have to do is adopt the logo to show that you are in favor of:
- Freedom from surveillance
- Personal privacy
- Anonymity
- Equal protection
- Due process
- Freedom to read, write, think, speak, associate, and travel
- The right to make your own choices about sex, reproduction, marriage, and death
- The right to dissent
All noble causes, but I’m not so sure of the logo concept. The current logo looks like something you might find at a construction site. Contractors always seem to have some giant letter and a globe or world image. Or maybe it just too similar to the international symbol for tourist information. Imagine when people who display the logo suddenly find all the tourists asking them for help — “but your button means you are to give me a map of the local area, no? Can you at least point me to the hostel?” Might be a good conversation starter, but it could also start to annoy the legitimate information booths.
And what is the split down the middle of the “I” supposed to represent? Brackets?
Maybe I’m the wrong kind of person to comment on button and sticker design (having little/no experience myself). But it seems to me that a campaign for human rights based on privacy needs something a little more iconic and unique. I propose some variation of the following as an alternative:
Or does that infringe on the “cats” trademark?
More seriously, I’m kind of curious how an “Individual I” concept might merge or overlap with the “Army of One” campaign. Anyone else notice the very similar themes of ontology? For some reason I would have expected Bruce to have more in common with Martin Buber’s I and Thou than a US military advertising campaign.
Speaking of the US military, here’s another idea: the famous logo from the 1st Armored Division could be transformed into an I, in order to achieve a good mix, like saying “an army of I”:
From this: 
to this: 
Although you wouldn’t be allowed to call it the “big red i”, or “red bone”…