This last weekend I spent 4 days with senior level graphic design students in northern Michigan on our yearly drawing workshop, where the students are tasked to re-connect their art brains into their design brains and make connections with the weird environment up there that doesn't include computers. It's a good time for me as well, as I get to do quick micro design projects with very low tech tools, and get some ideas flushed through my head. Good mental design house-cleaning.

So, spurred on by Warren's post from a month or so back about the attempts to design a flag for the Earth, I decided that while I didn't like that design, why not try one of my own?

I made a ton of sketches, establishing parameters of what needed to be communicated with someone from another solar system in reference to our planet.
It came down to a few key elements: our star, our planet's spacial relationship to that star, and the fact that we had one moon. No human type, the mark for third planet away from the star was a iconic, simple counting mark. No color, highest contrast for maximum visibility.

Here's my sketch process (white plaka on black paper):

My final marks (rendered in the computer afterwards):

And the large scale flags/banners I painted (I only brought a yellow plastic tablecloth, no white) and the little "Earth business cards" I made to hand out to all the students on the trip.