Breastfeeding Icons (Update)

Update: With Mother's Day soon approaching, I thought I'd update one of my first posts: it's about a design contest for breastfeeding icons. Here is the original post. I'll name the winner at the end.

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You be the Judge! If you've ever created an icon or logo, you know that you want your design to be recognizable, memorable, and simple. There's a delicate balance between providing enough information to make your idea recognizable, but not having so much that the concept you're trying to communicate gets lost. In addition, having your design work at many different sizes is important.

Mothering, the natural family living magazine, decided to have a "Create a Breastfeeding Icon" contest.

The image of a baby bottle on an airport sign announcing the location of a "parents lounge" infuriated us and got us thinking: Isn't there an international symbol for breastfeeding? We called around. Spoke to lactivists and breastfeeding organizations all over the world. No one had seen or heard of an international symbol for breastfeeding. This is our official call for entries.

They received over 500 entries, and narrowed it down to twelve finalists. I've selected my favorite four icons (shown below). Voting just ended and the winner will be announced soon. Okay, icon judges: Which do you think best does the job? Which would you like to see in an airport?

Among the many entries were some that, as the editors put it,  "made us smile." Again I've selected my four favorites. What do you think? Would you want to see any of these at an airport? Do they (unintentionally) communicate another message?

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The winner according to Mothering is icon 8 (above) created by Matt Daigle, a graphic designer, stay-at-home father and self-described "Mr. Mom." Congratulations Matt!

Interesting side note: Matt is a deaf cartoonist. Check out his site for his take on what he thinks is funny in the "deaf world."

Any thoughts? Which icon would you have selected?

Comments

[Jed Christiansen]

Icon 8 was definitely the best of the bunch. I'm assuming that for an international symbol, you want clearly recognisable mother and child figures (Icons 1 and 10 don't do well here), and something fairly consistent in style with other international symbols (Icon 11 isn't that). What you're left with is Icon 8, which is a really well-designed icon.

Very interesting find!

[Karl Boggs]

I like the winning icon a lot - very good design and aesthetically pleasing.

Internation symbols can be very amusing, and Ze Frank parodied a number of them while he was doing "the Show". One my favorites is reinterpreting the "baby changing area" into a duck relieving itself.

[Karl Boggs]

Sometimes I should proofread - let me just say that icon 8 is my favorite too. (and I can spell I just don't type all that well)

[Clarissa]

Icon 1 and 2 place too much emphasis on the breastiness of the process. Icon 11 has a funny haircut or a really pointy nose. Maybe she's an alien. Icon 8 is a nice simple choice.

That being said, the office thinks the fork and knife picture would have been a deliciously entertaining decision. It is, afterall, the civilized way to imbibe. Be it mama's milk or a bite of caviar. Thanks for the tasty laughs.

[Michael Herzog]

8 is the winner. It´s simple, clear, and what is most important - it doesn´t show the outline of breasts.

There is nothing wrong with that outline, but there is always the chance that someone is offended by it. ;)

[modifoo]

8

[Movie Songs Hindi]

This one icon is very sexy