A lot of thought went into a little logo. Safety Is Elemental, a phrase and logo concept chosen from more than 150 entries, captures the spirit of the strong safety culture at the Laboratory. Deputy Lab Director Horst Simon (center) sent a Level-One email in February asking staff to come up with memorable phrases. Liz Moxon (left) and Lori Tamura of the Advanced Light Source Communications Group put their creative heads together and came up with the winner.
“We thought the word ‘elemental’ resonated with current and historic research at the Lab,” they said. While they were tinkering with the phrase “safety element” Moxon suggested they tie in a graphic element. This trigger prompted Tamura to think of the Periodic Table of Elements.
After a little more fine-tuning, the two came up not only with the winning phrase, Safety Is Elemental, but an accompanying graphic. Fortunately “Sf” wasn’t taken on the Periodic Table, which allowed the concept to work. The two had to decide what the two numbers associated with an actual element — the atomic number and atomic mass — would represent the Safety Element in the graphic. The 13 in the upper-left corner represents the number of Nobel Laureates awarded from their research at LBNL, and the adjacent 4,200 the amount of Lab employees. The new icon and slogan will be used in communications related to safety culture at the Lab.
